Hodie Hodie

2025-07-27T20:00:00+02:00

Here is a brief report of a just recently remembered impromptu act of magic I did during a very difficult itme two years ago with my six‑year‑old daughter that took effect instantly.

Vogon Territory

Mid October 2023. A week after the horrific events of October 7¹. Early morning.

My current temporary resident visa for Israel was due to expire three weeks later and we had an appointment with the immigration office scheduled for that date to extend it. Due to the complete chaos, the war that had just broken out, and the state of emergency a lot of the public administration was on hold and most branches closed.

My wife T had the wild idea to just drive there today to be there when it opened and ask them if we could just do it. This was an unthinkable request even during normal operational capacity and always required a scheduled appointment and hours of waiting. Research and anecdotes of other citizens backed this up.

On top of that, Middle Eastern civil clerks value their momentary moods way more than regulations or streamlined process, so any interaction with them is always a gamble. It's a pain to deal with Vogons² anywhere, but here they come with an attitude 🤌🏽.

But we tried anyway - mainly to have more flexibility in being able to re-enter the country in case we needed to escape the war for a few weeks rather sooner than later (problems I never imagined having to deal with).

I started thinking about how to nudge this improbable task magically to our favour. There was no time to do any ritual nor cast sigils, or anything else, but I remembered St. Expedite, the expert in "no time for..." cases.

I whispered a quick made up prayer before getting in the car and felt like a total imposter.

After a frustrating morning rush hour drive, we climbed the perpetually broken escalator of the run down shopping center that hosts the immigration office and stepped into the spacious lobby, its marble-and-nicotine color palette stretching beneath high ceilings. The queue was already quite long. My daughter E and I sat down on some chairs in a corner while my wife T waited in line.

A Centurion's Cogency

E had a little sketchbook with her and asked me what to draw. She was bored. I suddenly had an idea: "draw a Roman soldier with a palm branch in one hand and a cross in the other!" She found it an oddly specific request but happily started sketching. We refined it by adding a crow and having him say "Hodie!" and I explained to E that this guy might help us get a visa extension today.

She looked at me skeptically and asked me how. So I quickly briefed her that this was a way to do magic and that we needed to pretend that we already had success - so much that we would really believe it!

I asked her to imagine St. Expedite flying through the room and whispering into the bouncer's ear to let us in and to the clerk inside to give us a visa. So we did.

When we saw that T was at the front of the line and the grumpy security officer was about to address her. E and I both whispered "Hodie!" three times.

They exchanged a few sentences, the guy nodded and T looked over with a surprised look, waving us to come.

Inside we immediately got called to some clerk's desk and I had my renewed visa around 20 minutes later!

T was shocked how all of this was possible and I told her on the way back to the car that we might have just had some divine intervention from a Christian saint.

E was super excited that she did some REAL MAGIC and of course wanted to do more!

The Art of the Deal

Expeditus always acts swiftly but legend says you can boost his efficiency when there's something in it for him. He's modest though and responds best to public praise. What has worked for me is posting his icon on socials online along with a prayer.

Here are the posts I published on Instagram after both times Saint Expedite had helped me:

On October 7, 2023, Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups launched coordinated armed incursions from the Gaza Strip into the Gaza envelope of southern Israel, the first large-scale invasion of Israeli territory since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. In total, 1,195 people were killed and the attack initiated the ongoing Gaza war. ↩
In Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the Vogons are an alien race from the planet Vogsphere who are employed as the galactic government's bureaucrats. More info on this fandom wiki page ↩

SUBLUNAR SPACE - israel

Hodie Hodie

Vogon Territory

A Centurion's Cogency

The Art of the Deal