My Life Unfolds as Dictated by a 6th Grade Game of M.A.S.H.
- Aug 28
- 4 min read
by Casey Jo Graham Welmers
Mansion
I marry the Crypt Keeper. The rickety old ghoul dies en route to the reception, bequeathing me a small fortune. (What can I say—it was an arranged marriage, and death by holy water is a silent epidemic in select populations.) My palatial Malibu estate is an architectural wonder: there’s a hidden library accessible via bookcase, skylights in every room, a palmetto tree growing through the den. A small parade of candy-colored inner-tubes floats across one of the pools. Yes, I have two pools—a pair of aquamarine kidney beans, oriented in anatomically correct fashion. I was employed as a garbage collector, but thanks to Mr. Keeper’s timely demise, I was able to hang up my jumpsuit. If I’m being honest? It wasn’t a bad job, riding around in the California sunshine on the back of the rig. You wouldn’t believe the stuff people toss out, especially in Malibu. The curb is an untapped gold mine! I tell my three pets, all unnamed dogs of indeterminate breed. My favorite trash discovery is a small ceramic figurine on a string, some kind of patron saint or maybe the Virgin Mary herself. I hang her from the rearview of my Ferrari, expecting to be blessed with more green lights or safe travels, but on an ordinary Tuesday the car blows a tire on Rodeo Drive. At night I clutch the figurine in my fist, convinced that every shadow in my massive home is the ghost of another ghost, ad infinitum.
Apartment
I marry Matthew Broderick, who dresses like Ferris Bueller every day. This at least makes buying clothes and doing laundry easy. Matthew/Ferris takes care of our parakeet, Nacho, who I’m largely ambivalent towards. He trains Nacho to ride around on his shoulder and eat out of his hand, which is admittedly kind of cute. I don’t know what they get up to all day because I’m never really home. My job as journalist takes me all over the world: Egypt, Peru, Switzerland. Matthew/Ferris and I argue a lot because I frequently stay in Switzerland to ski. Matthew/Ferris doesn’t like to ski. Nacho could get seriously hurt! he whines over long-distance phone calls. Why would Nacho be at the mountain? I ask, but Matthew/Ferris huffs and hangs up the phone, dead air ringing in my ear. He should be happy I’ve left him the Corvette, but it’s unlikely he’ll abandon Nacho for a joyride. I don’t think Matthew/Ferris would ever take Nacho out of the apartment, anyway—he’s terrified the parakeet will fly away. Once, on one of the rare weekends I was home, I cranked our kitchen window wide open while Matthew/Ferris was asleep, no screen between the apartment and the neon night. Nacho hopped onto the sill, cocked his head, contemplated the moon. He never flew off, but I did feel sad for him then.
House
I marry Chris H., my sixth-grade crush. We live in a new house in the new subdivision full of new and shiny things. I work as an English teacher and teach students about adverbs and nouns. Chris H. leaves me love notes on ruled notebook paper folded into small triangles (almost) every day. For now, it doesn’t even matter that our only vehicle, a rusted-out bus, doesn’t run, because we walk everywhere, hand in hand. We own two betta fish, but I put them in the same tank so now I only have one. I can’t say why I did this, only that I knew what would happen but hoped the Universe would divine a different outcome. You see, the larger betta killed the smaller betta. I wasn’t convinced of its death. For three days I just left it in the tank, fins dropping across the water like a gossamer veil. Then I scooped it out with my bare hand and buried it as deep as I possibly could in our immaculate lawn.
Shack
In the garden behind my small mountain cabin, I twist a marigold stem into a ring and marry myself. I have no job and no real pets, but I have the world: a green meadow that spills into a red canyon that stretches across a desert filled with peculiar, prickled things. Every morning, I find a tiny yellow orb spider clinging to the dream catcher suspended above my bed. I name her Goldschlager. One might think this a lonesome existence, a girl in a shack, no one but the wind to say her name, a spider as her familiar. But isn’t this the kind of freedom I’ve always imagined? I guess I just never had the guts to ask for it. When the shack feels too small but the outdoors feels too large, I hop into my vintage Mustang, fly down the mountain, float my hand out the window like a small, swift bird. I sing “Runnin’ Down a Dream” along with Tom Petty and think about working on mysteries: figuring out what happens when we die, what it means to live, and who, if anyone, is responsible for it all.
Casey Jo Graham Welmers practices writes essays and small weird things from the Great Lakes State. Find her work in JMWW, HAD, Stanchion, BULL, Does It Have Pockets, Hobart, Claudine, Bending Genres and more at caseyjo.carrd.co
