THE WORLD IS A STAGE

THE WORLD DID NOT HAVE TO BECOME LIKE IT IS: ON HISTORY, CHANCE, AND THE ILLUSION OF INEVITABILITY

JULIÁNA AGUIRRE

February 17, 2026

This is a catalogue of things that never happened, and it is precisely their absence that shaped the world as it is. Nothing occurred by accident; what matters is what failed to take place. We learned to recognize this only afterward.

---

A treaty signed by a bored clerk. A comma changing a border. A stamp applied upside down. A seal pressed too hard. A signature added without reading. A storm arriving a week early. A storm arriving a week late. A winter lasting one month longer. A winter ending before it taught anything. A summer ending abruptly. A summer refusing to end. A harvest rotting in transit. A harvest hoarded instead of shared. A warehouse burning overnight. A warehouse insured too well. A ship turning back. A ship not turning back. A ship lost within sight of land. A captain misreading the stars. A captain trusting them too much. A compass drifting slightly. A compass corrected too late. A messenger delayed. A messenger killed on the road. A messenger bribed. A message misunderstood. A message believed because it was crude. A message doubted because it was precise. A rumor traveling faster than proof. A rumor arriving before memory. A lie repeated until useful. A lie becoming infrastructure. A book surviving because no one read it. A book disappearing because everyone did. A book misfiled for centuries. A manuscript lost in copying. A manuscript corrected into error. A footnote becoming doctrine. A doctrine surviving as footnote. A truth spoken too early. A truth arriving too late. A truth ignored because it was subtle. A truth rejected because it was inconvenient. A slogan winning because it was simple. A slogan surviving because it offended no one. A ruler dying before learning restraint. A ruler living long enough to lose it. A crown passing sideways. A crown resting uneasily. A bloodline ending in a cough. A bloodline continuing without purpose. A regent overstaying the crisis. A regent leaving too soon. An heir born sickly. An heir surviving out of spite. A general hesitating. A general obeying. A general improvising. A general promoted for silence. A battle won by fog. A battle lost by enthusiasm. A battle forgotten despite victory. A retreat mistaken for strategy. A strategy mistaken for retreat. A charge mistaken for courage. Courage mistaken for recklessness. A war begun for honor. A war begun for bookkeeping. A war ending from fatigue. A war ending because attention moved on. A ceasefire holding accidentally. A ceasefire breaking over pride. A ceasefire signed for cameras. A revolution devouring its calendar. A revolution stalling over procedure. A revolution institutionalized too fast. A rebellion succeeding because no one cared. A rebellion failing because everyone did. A rebellion postponed until harmless. A law written vaguely on purpose. A law enforced strictly once. A law ignored long enough to matter. A law remembered only when useful. A precedent surviving out of laziness. A precedent overturned out of embarrassment. A loophole becoming doctrine. A doctrine hiding a loophole. A regulation written after the damage. A regulation designed to look busy. A god speaking through the wrong mouth. A god remaining silent at the right moment. A revelation arriving in bad handwriting. A revelation arriving without witnesses. A vision recorded decades later.

Civilization, color-coded for optimism.

A vision edited for coherence. A miracle reported secondhand. A miracle denied officially. A parable taken as instruction. An instruction taken as law. A metaphor hardened into doctrine. A doctrine softened into metaphor. A doubt labeled heresy. A doubt absorbed as style. A heresy tolerated until it spread. A heresy crushed before it named itself. A council convened too late. A council settling nothing. A council producing paperwork. A schism over a sentence. A schism remembered as destiny. A schism forgotten as trivia. A faith surviving because it adapted. A faith collapsing because it refused. A faith preserved by accident. A god made universal by empire. An empire made sacred by god. A ritual replacing repair. A ritual surviving after belief. A prayer standing in for action. An action framed as prayer. A sin invented to regulate behavior. A forgiveness sold in advance. A promise deferred to the afterlife. An afterlife used to manage the present. A heaven invoked to justify suffering. A suffering reframed as test. A test never graded. A test graded on loyalty. A church becoming an archive. An archive mistaken for truth. A truth buried in preservation. A text preserved because it was useful. A text destroyed because it was dangerous. A text surviving because it was dull. A translation flattening transcendence. A mistranslation founding orthodoxy. A religion hardening around its enemies. A religion softening until it vanished. A religion surviving as habit. A heresy tolerated one generation too long. A god replaced by progress. Progress replaced by management. Management mistaken for wisdom. Wisdom punished as obstruction. A machine arriving without meaning. A meaning searching for a machine. A technology loved because it worked. A technology adopted because it spread.

Empires, ideas, catastrophes—all strangely manageable at this size.

A technology retained because it could not be undone. A technology regretted too late. A tool becoming an environment. An environment mistaken for nature. A nature redesigned quietly. A language imposed for efficiency. A language lost for precision. A dialect mocked into extinction. A dialect preserved as curiosity. A translation flattening a thought. A mistranslation founding a movement. A metaphor taken literally. A literalism called honesty. A statistic believed because it looked neutral. A statistic ignored because it implicated. A map trusted because it was clean. A map distrusted because it was accurate. A border drawn by someone absent. A border defended by those trapped behind it. A city renamed to forget. A city preserved to pretend. A monument built too soon. A monument demolished too late. A ruin preserved too late. A ruin erased too fast. A philosopher admired into irrelevance. A philosopher feared into power. A philosopher quoted without context. A theory simplified for teaching. A theory distorted for funding. A curriculum freezing a mistake. A curriculum updating too slowly. A school producing obedience. A school producing nothing at all. A school producing resentment. A myth repeated until it governed. A myth abandoned once it worked. A policy defended until it became sacred. A policy abandoned once exposed. A massacre justified as order. Order invented after the massacre. A crime renamed necessity. A necessity renamed virtue. A punishment framed as hygiene. A hygiene framed as morality. A cruelty called realism. A realism called maturity. A people told they are late. A people told they are chosen. A people told they are temporary. A population counted incorrectly. A population counted strategically. A census category inventing an identity. An identity resisting the category. A migration diverted by rumor. A migration encouraged by neglect. A border crossed because it was thin. A border fortified after it failed. A passport denied without reason. A passport granted by accident. A document forged convincingly. A market crashing on confidence. Confidence restored by force. Force disguised as stability. A strike ending in compromise. A compromise remembered as betrayal. A betrayal forgiven quietly. A union choosing order over leverage. A union dissolving after success. A corporation surviving because it bored everyone. A corporation failing because it inspired belief. A monopoly breaking too late. A monopoly defended as efficiency. A reform diluted for passage. A reform passed and never enforced. A reform enforced selectively. A constitution amended quietly. A constitution amended too loudly. A clause ignored deliberately. A clause weaponized suddenly. A court deciding on procedure. A court hiding behind precedent. A precedent overturned for optics. A precedent preserved out of fear. A scandal arriving after careers ended. A scandal absorbed as background noise. A photograph circulating without context. A photograph staging context retroactively. A document sealed indefinitely. A document leaking uselessly. An archive lost to mold. An archive curated into silence. An archive digitized into oblivion. A memory preserved selectively. A memory edited for comfort. A forgetting rewarded with peace. A forgetting enforced by law. A trauma turned into ceremony.

The calm voice of the alternative survey course, still oddly persuasive.

A ceremony replacing repair. A repair postponed indefinitely. A generation inheriting answers. A generation destroying questions. A generation inventing new ones too late. A future promised. A future postponed. A future canceled quietly. A future rebranded optimistically. A warning dismissed as pessimism. A warning monetized. A disaster producing discipline. A disaster producing indifference. A success producing decay. A success misread as proof. A mistake rewarded with longevity. A correction punished as weakness. A weakness reframed as identity. A path mistaken for progress. Progress mistaken for destiny. Destiny invented to excuse the path. A path defended because it existed. Chance tolerated. Chance denied. Chance blamed. Chance crowned. Chance moralized. Chance forgotten. A moment mistaken for meaning. Meaning invented to survive the moment. A survival mistaken for justification.

Juliána Aguirre (born somewhere at some time) is an Argentinean writer trained as an elevator technician. She has worked intermittently in elevators (mostly in Rosario), in archives, and in administrative offices, often fixing systems that she did not design. Her texts tend to circulate after she has stopped paying attention to them. She claims no intellectual formation beyond manuals, invoices, and things that refuse to start. She lives between drafts and breakdowns and distrusts anything that runs smoothly for too long. Sometimes she is stuck between floors.

Cover image: Civilizations rise, empires fall, bookmarks disappear.