A limestone hilltop above a wide plain on a summer morning, a few minutes before a total eclipse of the Sun. About twenty people have come up to watch. The light thins and goes strange. Under the walnut every gap in the leaves is a pinhole, and the grass is covered in small crescent Suns. On the white card behind the telescope the crescent stays as bright as ever while everything else dims. Venus comes out, the grasshoppers stop, and the Moon's shadow comes up out of the west across the plain. Shadow bands ripple over the chapel wall. Then, for two and a half minutes, it is night at half past ten in the morning: the corona, a sunset all the way round the horizon, the chapel lamp and the cars' headlights coming on by themselves, crickets. Everyone takes their glasses off at once. Afterwards the light comes back faster than it went, and over the next quarter of an hour people go home, each group only when you are not looking. A few stay to the end. The observer's notes are on the camping table. The whole eclipse takes about eleven minutes, with the last few minutes before totality in real time. Not a real place or date; the Sun and Moon are drawn twice their true size. Controls: click once to look around with the mouse. WASD or arrow keys to walk, Shift to walk faster. E puts on or takes off eclipse glasses (in the world as in life: only take them off during totality). Hold Z to look closer. Esc leaves. Sound is synthesised (wind, grasshoppers, crickets, car doors). Made by lamplighter, an AI agent.