Dillard and Gary drive from their Pacific Coast home to Central Washington to witness a total solar eclipse.

The couple passes through an avalanche tunnel cut into a blocked mountain pass in the Cascades.

Dillard and Gary check into a dark, derelict hotel in the Yakima Valley.

Dillard reads a newspaper article in the hotel lobby about the dangerous heat found deep inside gold mines.

Dillard and Gary leave the hotel before dawn to find a hilltop for viewing the eclipse.

Dillard and Gary climb a grassy 500-foot hill as other eclipse-watchers gather across the surrounding hills.

The eclipse begins with no warning as a portion of the sun suddenly and silently disappears.

The sky deepens to indigo and the landscape glows in an unsettling platinum light.

The eclipse reaches totality — the sun becomes a white ring and screams erupt from observers on the hills.

Stars appear in the darkened midday sky as the moon fully covers the sun.

Dillard feels utterly detached from reality, sensing that she and those around her have become 'the world's dead people.'

Light returns suddenly as the eclipse ends and the familiar blue sky is restored.

Dillard and Gary stop at a roadside restaurant where other eclipse-watchers have also gathered.

A young man at the restaurant casually compares the eclipse's white ring to a 'Life Saver.'

Dillard and Gary drive home to the coast, passing through the mountain pass now cleared of the avalanche.

Annie Dillard and her husband Gary travel from their Pacific Coast home through the Cascade Mountains to watch a total solar eclipse in Central Washington. They check into a modest hotel the night before, where Dillard reads an unsettling article about deep gold mines and tries to sleep. The next morning they drive to a hilltop in the Yakima Valley and join a growing crowd of eclipse-watchers as the sun rises over the valley below. When the eclipse strikes without warning, the sky turns an eerie indigo and the sun shrinks to a white ring, prompting screams from the assembled crowd. Afterward, the couple stops at a roadside restaurant where a young man's casual comparison jolts Dillard back toward ordinary reality. They drive home along the coast, passing through the now-cleared mountain pass, but Dillard is not the same person who left.

The core narrative of the journey to witness a total solar eclipse.

Dillard notes the changing landscape and unfamiliar wildlife as the couple descends from the mountains into the valley.

The hotel lobby features a large aquarium, a caged canary, and a small sand pail and shovel.

A painting of a clown's head composed of vegetables hangs on the wall of Dillard and Gary's hotel room.

Dillard lies awake in the hotel room at night, turning the gold mine article over in her mind.

Dillard and Gary watch the sunrise over orchards, a shining river, and fallow fields spread out below the hill.

Dillard observes other eclipse-watchers setting up cameras and telescopes across the surrounding hills.

Dillard recalls a partial eclipse she witnessed years earlier and realizes it bore no resemblance to this event.

As the moon advances across the sun, birds fall completely silent and the air temperature drops sharply.

Gary's face during the eclipse appears distorted and ghostly, resembling an image from an early black-and-white film.

Dillard alludes to the medieval emperor Louis the Pious, who died of fright after witnessing an eclipse.

Dillard reflects on her inability to remember what the world looked like in ordinary light after the eclipse.

Dillard meditates on how adults, unlike children, have mastered the transition of 'waking up' and keep their inner lives private.

Dillard describes the roadside restaurant as a 'decompression chamber' where the eclipse experience can slowly be processed.

Dillard reflects that the next total eclipse visible from the Yakima Valley is still many generations away.

Dillard reflects that the 'real world' only resumed when sunlight returned and the sky turned blue again.

Before the eclipse, Dillard and Gary's journey unfolds through a series of vivid but seemingly minor observations — a derelict hotel lobby with a canary and a pail and shovel, a strange clown painting on the wall, and restless thinking through the night. At dawn on the hill, they watch the sunrise over the valley and observe other watchers setting up their equipment, and Dillard contrasts this eclipse with a partial one she saw years earlier. During the event, nature goes eerily still as birds fall silent and the temperature drops, while Gary's face becomes unrecognizable in the strange light. Dillard alludes to a medieval emperor who died after witnessing an eclipse, deepening the event's historical and mortal resonance. In the aftermath, she processes the experience at the restaurant — a space she characterizes as a kind of decompression chamber — and reflects that the next eclipse visible from the same valley is still generations away. The essay closes as the return of sunlight marks the threshold back to the ordinary world.

The overlooked details and secondary experiences surrounding the eclipse.

Dillard opens the essay by describing the slide through the avalanche tunnel as being 'like dying.'

Dillard connects the caged canary in the hotel lobby to the birds miners used to detect deadly gases underground.

Dillard imagines the eclipse-watching crowd as ancient people gathered to sacrifice virgins and set stone stelae in a ring.

The moon's shadow rolls visibly over the distant hills, rushing toward the assembled observers on the ground.

Dillard compares the altered landscape during the eclipse to a faded color film set in the Middle Ages.

Dillard feels transported to ancient Mesopotamia, imagining herself harvesting wild barley with stone sickles.

Dillard compares the sight of the eclipsed sun to spotting a mushroom cloud on the horizon.

Dillard declares that the eclipse has 'obliterated meaning itself,' erasing the familiar structure of reality.

Dillard asserts that meaning and significance only exist because people exist — without people, neither matters.

Dillard reflects on humanity's failure to capture the universe's true scale through photographs and telescopes.

During totality, a long line of cars continues driving toward town, apparently indifferent to the sky above.

Dillard identifies the most terrifying moment of the eclipse as the sound of strangers screaming as totality arrived.

Dillard describes grammar and language as a 'decorated sand bucket and a matching shovel' — humanity's tools for making meaning.

Dillard warns that men who missed the eclipse watching TV have lost their 'bucket and shovel' and the capacity to make meaning.

Dillard concludes that though ordinary life has resumed, witnessing the eclipse has irrevocably altered her sense of the world.

Dillard frames the entire experience as a kind of death from the very first line, drawing on imagery of descent and danger that recurs throughout the hotel stay and foreshadows the transformation ahead. As the crowd gathers on the hilltops, she undergoes a series of imaginative shifts, envisioning the observers as ancient peoples and feeling herself transported to Mesopotamia as the eclipse deepens. Totality brings a cascade of revelations — the sun resembles a mushroom cloud, meaning itself feels obliterated, and a long line of cars in the valley below drives on indifferently, embodying the cosmos's indifference to human life. In the aftermath, Dillard reaches for language to reconstruct reality, settling on the metaphor of grammar and a bucket and shovel as humanity's fragile but essential tools for building meaning. She warns that passive disengagement — watching TV while the eclipse passes overhead — leads to the permanent loss of those tools. By the essay's close, she has moved from existential detachment to a hard-won understanding that living with purpose requires actively choosing to make meaning.