On the evening before I left home for a trip back to Canada, I found a note from the postman: there was a package waiting for me. I was pretty sure it was the Dark Albion softcovers from Amazon that I'd been waiting for.
This was a problem. I knew for sure that if I didn't pick them up somehow, it would be impossible that they'd still be around in a month's time. The Uruguayan postal service just doesn't work that way.
Unfortuntely, to get someone else to pick it up, I'd need to fill out an authorization sheet, with their ID number, AND leave them a photocopy of my own ID card.
Here was the problem: it was 7pm when I got the notice. Every conceivable place that might have a photocopier was closed. Furthermore, I was about to go to a Masonic meeting I couldn't avoid, which would last until about 1am, and then hightailing it out of town the next morning at 6.45am, long before any of the aforementioned photocopier places might open. Such are the complexity of living in a latinamerican country.
So, I quickly messaged the friend of mine who would be watching the house, and got his ID, and filled out the form. Knowing it was a longshot beyond that, I quickly did an invocation of my own augoeides, or tutelary spirit (what is often called the "Holy Guardian Angel" or "HGA" in modern magick). Having invoked, I then shifted myself into the astral plane, creating a mental image of the area that I was about to go to, the neighbourhood around my Lodge. My goal was to see if there was any direction, indication, of anything within about a 2 block radius that would be open and have a photocopier (a highly unlikely prospect). I immediately got a sense of the spot one bus stop beyond my regular stop to go to Lodge.
So off I went. I knew there was in fact a grocery store there, but was absolutely certain (having gone often) that they had no photocopier. As far as I recalled there was no other shop there except a florists, and certainly nothing that would give me cause to have any expectation of a postiive outcome.
So when I got off the bus, I look over at the opposite corner and see that there is in fact a very small kiosk (the sort of place that sells cigarettes, cookies, only very basic stuff). It seemed impossible to me that this place, that I'd never stepped into, would have a photocopier, but it was really the only credible chance. And in spite of having never even merited my notice before now, the moment I stepped off the bus the corner kiosk seemed to jump to my attention, as though astrally illuminated.
I stepped in, finding the usual (fairly meager) selection of basic necessities this kind of third world answer to the convenience store tends to have: newspapers, some sweets, flasks of booze, a small fridge with cold drinks, nothing fancy. There was a young woman at the counter; I asked her "this may sound really strange but do you by ANY strange chance have a photocopier?"
I swear to Christ this next bit happened exactly this way: the young lady grinned as if overjoyed that I had asked, saying "why yes we do!" and she stepped out of the way, waving her hand the way a game show presenter might when Pat Sajak just told you that you'd won a new car, and there right behind her counter there was an apparently pristine small size photocopier. It was as if years ago on some whim the shop owner had thought it would be a great investment for his little shop to have, only to have had it laying there untouched since that time because who in their right mind would even imagine a corner kiosk like this one would have a photocopier?
So there you have it. I got my photocopies, left them at the house for my friend with my authorization for him to pick my mail up, and headed off into the sunset (actually, the sunrise, but whatever).
And today, my housesitting friend sent me this:
Magick, baby!
RPGPundit
PS: here's the kicker: about a month ago I needed to make some photocopies in that area again, and so I went to that store. The guy at the counter there said that they don't make photocopies, and haven't in years.
(Originally Posted August 20, 2015)
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