The well had been dug in 1903. Three generations lowered buckets. The rope wore a groove in the stone lip that everyone assumed was decorative.
The fourth generation looked up.
From the bottom of a well, during the day, you can see stars. The surrounding brightness is blocked. What remains is the signal that was always there but couldn't compete.
She didn't report the finding. She told the neighbor. The neighbor told his daughter. His daughter went down and looked up and told no one but understood something about proportion.
The well never pumped differently. Nothing changed at the surface. Underneath, a county of people carried a fact about brightness they couldn't use for anything.