wild red tulips

I don't know anything about gardening, but I thought you had to plant tulips. I mean, they are bulbs, right? Big, like onions. Not little seeds that get airborne and spread. I could be wrong. Like I say, I don't know.

Nonetheless, our story today depends on tulips being bulbs. It begins on bloggrrilla's morning commute, which entails about a mile walk to the train station over some heartbreakingly lovely roads. I'm not even being sarcastic, it's beautiful up here. I also walk past the world's largest set of dumpsters, which aren't so lovely. I scan them daily for glue traps, which i promptly destroy. I cannot stand glue traps. Abominations. If you set them, I will destroy them. Even roach motels. But I digress. Across from the dumpsters is a narrow strip of weedy grass, which rises to about head level, because as you walk past the dumpsters you walk into the valley of the shadow of death. Sorry I cannot keep the stream o consciousness outta here today. NO discipline. Back to the story. The weedy strip borders one of the pretty roads.

I take my camera with me some mornings, because I like the change of seasons and sometimes get the urge to chronicle it visually. So one morning, as i walked past the dumpsters on my left, to my right, I caught a glimpse of red. Bright, bloody red. Naturally I turned. There, in the weedy strip, were 2 perfect, full, red, tulips. As perfect as if waving gently in the overcultivated gardens of the versailles.
As brave as two orphans in a storm. As happy as...well whatever, you get the picture. Unexpected at any rate, and certainly not weeds.
So I took pix of them, and went on.

And came home that night, saw them there, and felt as though I had a secret joy.

Went to work the next day.

And came home.

And lo and behold, some moron had mowed the weedy strip, and mowed the tulips to the ground. Chopped red petals lay there, nothing else.

Pretty stupid. I mean, one doesn't mow tulips, does one?

It's hard to have a secret joy these days. Someone always fucks it up.