My Holy Stupor of Ecstasy

Walter was very sick from Arsine gas runoff which had been collecting for years in our Valley’s birdbaths and sewers and bore holes; all remnants from a previous era when Northeastern Pennsylvania was a flourishing and prosperous spot on the map with happy children giggling everywhere.  Parents ate bleenies and wiped coal dust from their shoes and their faces, singing, ""My gown stays white / From morn till night / Upon the road of Anthracite".

We weren’t encouraged to go to school in our family, and although I knew that I was extraordinarily gifted in some areas, I was very happy to find a devout life of connubial bliss.   That night at the General Hospital Center, the sanctity of Walter’s and my marital bond was blessed by my vow to The Almighty that I nurse him back to health. When Walter's condition took a turn for the worse, I was stricken with thoughts about the arsenic, a possible trial and prison sentence to pluck me out of the lifestyle to which I was accustomed.  I was also worried about the woman I had become.  How could I have poisoned my Walter?  I was glad I wore my MaryJanes and jumpsuit, which flattered my slender figure that had not an ounce of pregnancy weight left behind.  I had piled my raven hair high into an elaborate chignon and put on rouge and shiny red lipstick.  A strand of very convincing fake pearls was around my neck, and as the doctor explained Walter's condition to me, I fingered them nervously if I wasn't busy dabbing my eyes.

Naturally! I worried about getting caught trying to poison my husband; a woman of my esteem.  Getting caught doing that simply isn’t done. Still, my heart was in the right place, as it saved our marriage.  God endorsed all of this.  Keep reading, you'll see what I mean.  Because of the emotional rollercoaster his cheating caused me, and because of this terrible stew of emotions I was boiling in,  my veins pulsed with an adrenaline I hadn’t felt before or since, and I slipped into a holy stupor of ecstacy where Dear God came to me in a vision. 

He appeared on the chrome surface of the coffee machine in the Hospital Lounge. He touched my hair and told me that the arsenic poisoning Wanda Stavish dreamed up was endorsed by the Holy Ghost as payback for Walter’s sin of oogling our Maid as I did the supper dishes.  (Oogling is a second-tier sin in line with coveting thy neighbor’s wife, you see.)  God looked just like Jeffrey Hunter and He went on to explain that the local media was about to break the story about arsine gas from the abandoned strip mines out in Duryea, which had leeched into the topsoil and drinking water of several townships in the region.  That week, three other locals had been admitted to the Hospital with the self-same symptoms as my Walter.

This chrome apparition of Holy God, dazzling and shiny, came to me when I was at my lowest hour, and it renewed my faith. I knew in my heart that my Walter was never really in any grave danger, due to the small amount of poison I used nightly.  In fact, he recovered completely and, except for a few nights of fever and dementia unrelated to the arsenic, lived a long and healthy life, never to have roving eyes again.

Though the local Detective Sholtis insisted on further investigation, he eventually dropped the matter when I showed him photographs I had obtained of his wife doing despicable things in the Ladie's Dressing Room at Pomeroy’s department store down town.

This visitation from God in the hospital is one of several instances where the Holy Ghost has taken use of my facility for the greater good. It truly is my ecstasy, and I question HIM not.

Yours in the Love of Christ,

Mrs. Walter J. Katsellas