The morning of December 31st was breaking over the city of Atlas, and Equador had barely begun to fall asleep when he heard his mother calling from the bedroom.
"Equador! Wake up, son! This is the big day!"
The sound of the guests' alarm clocks was already beginning to ring, and the workers of the boarding house and the complex were already getting ready for when the guests woke up.
Equador had spent the night burning with fever and headaches, and sleep had never come. By the time his head had finally stopped hurting and he managed to drift off, his mother was already awake and had begun preparing for New Year's Eve.
That night, his only company had been his black cat, Hermes. Hermes was a very curious cat who had appeared in Equador's life when he was thirteen. Unlike other cats, he was not afraid of water or loud noises. In fact, very little ever frightened Hermes, and he always followed Equador wherever he went inside the house.
The cat had changed very little since reaching adulthood. He was playful and seemed to have too much energy, whether it was day or night. He had been Equador's only friend since he left school. Hermes never left his side, especially when he was sick.
What Equador disliked most was when Hermes somehow realized that he was unwell and would not stop chasing after his mother, meowing until she understood that the cat was trying to say something was wrong. After that happened several times, it became almost impossible not to understand that this was the message, and that perhaps the cat was asking for help rather than attention for himself.
To Equador, Hermes was company, especially after his grandfather died and the two of them began spending most of their time together.
Equador looked at his phone: it was only six in the morning. The workday began early at the Sol e Mar Complex, especially on the thirty-first, when tourists from all over the world came to visit the city in search of the beaches and the Amazon rainforest. At the Sol e Mar Boarding House in particular, it was the busiest day of the year.
But besides being New Year's Eve, it was also his sixteenth birthday. And he had prepared for that day for a very long time, because it was the day he would finally launch his online store.
For three hundred and sixty-five days, Equador had worked every single day at the Sol e Mar Boarding House. He took odd jobs throughout the complex too and signed up for every extra shift he could possibly find.
Cleaning bathrooms, helping as a tour guide assistant, delivering packages, being a last-minute DJ, cleaning the beauty salon, serving as a waiter in the boarding house snack bar. All that in addition to the boarding house chores themselves.
Equador filled every minute of his life trying to make his dream come true. Because every single day it was impossible not to feel a fire burning inside him, asking and calling for change and improvement. And for Equador, it was easier to do everything he did than to silence the voice inside him that screamed for more.
Equador was an ambitious boy, but more than that: he spared no effort to reach what he wanted. Deep down, he believed he could become free and independent, no longer depending on his mother or being a burden on the family.
Equador got out of bed so quickly that he felt the world spin. He dressed fast in the Sol e Mar uniform and ran to the breakfast table, where there was a lime pie.
Not just any lime pie, but the best lime pie in the world, according to Equador.
Equador's mother was a woman of average height, with short straight hair and pale white skin. That morning, she had woken up three hours earlier than usual and gone to bed an hour later than normal. All of it to speed up the special breakfast the boarding house organized for staff and guests. And on top of that, to prepare the famous lime pie that Equador loved most.
All through the night, Equador had heard the clatter of kitchen utensils from his room, but the only thing going through his head was that he needed to fall asleep quickly — and he did not know how.
In the early hours, when he briefly managed to sleep, Equador had strange dreams in which he could not explain who he was or where he was. He dreamed that he was in a city that looked as though it had been built in a hurry: houses stacked on top of houses and bridges connecting buildings.
In that city there were not only people, but animals from all over the world walking like humans, seeming much more human than in the normal world. In that world, people smiled at him and, whenever they looked at him, their eyes lit up as though they had found answers in his own. He had even seen a pair of giraffes with their child approaching him to ask for an autograph on a sheet of parchment that bore a strange drawing of a creature and a star.
Everything in that place was vast in scale: great columns, enormous gates, buildings that looked as though they had risen from a forgotten age. The moon was enormous and occupied a great portion of the sky, which shone in many different colors except for the usual shades of blue found in reality.
He had seen spaceships and, if he had not imagined it, even dragons, which made him believe that perhaps it was all just a fever dream — something that rarely happened. Usually, he only ever hallucinated about evil monsters and dark shadows that would not leave him alone.
But one thing in particular caught his attention: the symbol of a star was everywhere in the city, especially on a giant wishing fountain. At the top of it stood a warrior holding a blue star in one hand and a sword in the other.
When Equador looked carefully at the face of that warrior, he realized that it was himself. He felt shy, but understood why people were looking at him differently: perhaps they had mistaken him for the warrior in the statue because he resembled him too much. But surely that had to be a mistake, because the warrior was tall, strong, and very handsome — something Equador considered himself far from being.
Just as he began wondering why that warrior looked so much like him, someone touched his shoulder. When he turned around, he was startled to find a polar bear trying to speak to him, saying:
"Welcome back to Oblivion!"
That was when Equador woke up, dizzy and drenched in sweat.
His mother quickly sang happy birthday, and Equador smiled, trying to hide the terrible headache he was feeling. He did everything he could so that his mother would not even suspect he might be unwell. Because he knew that, deep down, she needed him badly, and if she found out he was sick, he would be forced to stay in bed — something Equador hated, especially when he knew his mother was already working twice as hard because of his absence.
As the owner of the building and the person responsible for the Sol e Mar Complex, her presence was highly necessary there, and Equador played a crucial role in the productivity of the business. He knew how needed he was, and he liked being able to help.
But all of that would change when his online store succeeded. His mother would no longer have to work so much, and Equador would be able to hire several employees and even expand the boarding house across the city. Anything was possible in the world when one had the money needed to obtain it.
The day passed quickly at the boarding house while Equador thought about everything he would do when his store became successful: the employees he would hire, what he would do in his free time, the places he would visit, and the neighbors he would help. Like old Lourdes, who lived alone and had lost her only son long ago.
He would buy the computer he had always dreamed of and spend his life traveling the world while working on the internet. Dreams upon dreams. Hopes and ambitions that burned inside him, from his soul to the tips of his body, bringing life and an energy that seemed endless.
When it finally struck six in the evening, his mother let him off early, mostly because it was his birthday. So Equador began organizing the preparations for the store launch.
He cleaned his room, took a shower, and put on a new outfit he had bought to wear only on his birthday. He cut himself a slice of his favorite pie, but decided to take the whole dish to his room in case he took too long.
He sat at his small computer desk, patiently, with his cat beside him. The website was counting down to launch the moment the year changed, and he waited for every second.
That dream would not leave his head, but what he remembered most clearly was the drawing that child giraffe had asked him to autograph. So, on impulse and out of curiosity, he decided to draw what seemed to be a strange mythical creature and a star. It looked more like a child's drawing — which would make sense — but why would that giraffe have asked him for an autograph if he had nothing to do with it and had no idea what those things even were?
It was 11:59.
Five, four, three, two, one.
"Congratulations, online store published. Good luck!"
Equador's heart beat so fast, and the cold knot in his stomach that had consumed him for the last few hours now burned with excitement. The day had finally arrived.
Outside, fireworks and firecrackers exploded frantically in the streets, and from a distance he could see the greatest fireworks display coming from Atlas Atlantic Beach. The neighborhood was noisy and lively.
Strangely enough, his cat had never been afraid of fireworks or explosions. He always liked watching fireworks, candles, anything burning, and that had always sparked curiosity in Equador.
Equador picked up the debit card where he had placed all the money he had saved throughout the year and entered the information into the advertising platform, the one responsible for delivering the site to people with real buying potential. Everything was automated. The pages were ready. The advertisements were configured. Only one final command remained.
The moment he clicked "ok," all the lights in the city went out.
The room plunged into darkness. The computer shut off along with everything else. For a few seconds, there was only the distant noise of the city and the pounding of his own heart.
The power returned shortly after. Equador turned the computer back on with trembling hands and opened the store panel again. It was half past midnight when the first notification finally appeared:
"Potential customer buying."
Equador held his breath.
At that exact moment, the page went offline.
He panicked. Refreshed the screen. Opened another tab. Typed the domain directly into the browser. Tried accessing it from his phone. Nothing loaded.
Then the message appeared:
"Website and domain lost due to a satellite failure caused by an unexpected solar storm. We apologize for the inconvenience. The amount will be refunded starting January 2nd. Happy New Year. HappyNetBrasil Digital Marketing Company."
Equador stared at the screen without blinking.
What bad luck, he thought. The worst of all.
Equador was devastated.
Out of a thousand and one possibilities, that happening on the very day he launched the store seemed impossible — and yet it was happening.
"I really am the unluckiest…" he thought out loud, shouting.
The pain of frustration was all he could feel in his chest, and in an explosion of rage, Equador tore apart all the posters and planners he had used during the creative process and planning of the online store, including the one that set his goal of making ten thousand sales.
The headache had returned, and he could feel the fever rising again. Unlike other nights, when he resisted the fever in order to avoid delirium and nightmares, he decided to simply lie down in bed and finish the rest of the lime pie until he fell asleep, hoping perhaps to find that magical place in his fever dreams.
Equador decided to turn on the television to make time pass faster. But on every channel there were New Year's fireworks displays from different parts of the world. After searching for quite a while, he found a documentary channel.
It was airing a documentary about the tragedy of December 31st, 2003 — curiously, the very day he had been born.
"Antônio Santos presents today a documentary that returns to a not so distant past, one that nearly changed the history of Brazil and the world.
After the end of the Cold War, when the nations of Earth sought a way out of a future of war and environmental devastation, they found in the mining of space minerals the most viable alternative.
The union of all the nations of Earth to create an infrastructure for space exploration. All of those combined forces devoted to a greater purpose, with Brazil at the center of the map.
Brazil had been chosen as the country where the largest space base on Earth would be built, connecting space to the world, specifically in the city of Alcântara.
The city of Alcântara offers many advantages, such as its extreme proximity to the Equator. The Earth spins faster at the planet's equator, and rockets launched from there receive a free push from the planet's rotation, gaining initial speed without spending extra fuel. Rockets launched there would save up to thirty percent of fuel, depending on the orbit.
Furthermore, launching over the ocean is another major advantage every space company keeps in mind: Alcântara faces the Atlantic Ocean, so discarded rocket stages would fall into the sea with no risk of affecting civilians."
What left him most stunned was discovering that the great tragedy that had ended the international operation had happened on the day of his birth.
"The Alcântara Project mobilized the 192 countries of the world, consuming more than one trillion dollars in resources, promises, and urgency. The plan would not only benefit the city of Alcântara, but also our greatest Amazonian metropolis, the ancient and mysterious city of Atlas, which would distribute all mined resources by ocean to the participating nations.
After being proposed in 1992, during Eco 92 in Rio de Janeiro, the project began implementation in 1993 and took literally ten years to complete.
In 1993, while Brazil was still struggling to stabilize its own currency, the world had already begun to see it as the physical base of the greatest human project ever conceived. Between 1993 and 2003, the Alcântara Project raised Brazil's GDP by nearly forty percent, transforming the country into one of the six largest economies on the planet and the main technological hub of the Southern Hemisphere.
But it was in 2003, the year of the launch, that everything began to unravel. With delays in launching the first fleet of spaceships, the creation of Earth's greatest space base began to show signs of misfortune.
The original launch date, April 9th, 2003, was postponed to May 20th and then to July 22nd. By that point, the world's population had already become pessimistic, unable to understand what was holding back the launch of such a massive project that had taken so long to build.
That was when the president of the Global Space Station, André Rígel, addressed the world, promising that the launch would take place without exception in 2003.
The reasons the launch did not happen were varied: sometimes a technical error, other times an entirely unforeseen material delay.
These errors continued repeating until the final launch date: the fateful day of December 31st, 2003. The day when humanity's greatest and most ambitious project died before it was even born.
Everyone remembers where they were when the ships Orion 2003, Beetlejuice 16, and Arie 14 exploded during launch, halting the dispatch of the other twenty-four spacecraft.
For a few years, Brazil ceased being a developing country and became the center of humanity's future. When Alcântara fell, it was not only a space base that exploded: it was the idea that the country could finally claim the sky.
After 2003, the project remained under maintenance. But in 2008, when the world faced one of the greatest economic crises since the Great Depression of the last century, sixty countries decided to withdraw from the space exploration project, which has remained frozen ever since for economic reasons and lack of return.
Which leads us to reflect: how great is humanity's ambition? What could we have done differently for it to succeed? Was it bad luck? Divine punishment for human greed? Or was it simply not meant to be?
Many mystics say we were prevented from touching the heavens because we were not yet prepared for such virtues. Others, more skeptical, say the same thing in more technical and scientific terms: it was all a matter of timing.
But one feeling remains in the minds of the people: a feeling of obstruction, that something or someone did not want this to happen.
This was a report by Antônio Santos, from the channel Natural World Brazil, presenting the unluckiest day in history, sixteen years ago, in the tunnel of time."
Equador was in disbelief. After years of bad luck, he had finally found a reason — or at least a sign — to explain the magnitude of his own misfortune.
He had been born on the unluckiest day in history.
And, absurd as it sounded, he thought: maybe I am the reason the space exploration project failed… because of my birth. Maybe I am the bad omen haunting the Earth. Maybe all my bad luck is simply my nature.
Equador began to feel hotter than ever, and his head hurt so much it felt as though a tiny giant were trying to crack open his skull and crawl out of his brain.
"At least it's night," he thought. "At least I won't let my mother down because my body decided to stop working."
While the world celebrated outside, Equador burned with fever, hoping to find refuge in deliriums that might ease his own pain of existing in a world that could not conceive of his greatness.
Somewhere in Oblivion, three people were moving in favor of Equador and his pronoia, and they were coming toward the surface.