No words on the eye
Nothing on the eye is a word. No labels, hints, arrows or previews of the next era. The eye and its one sign carry the meaning, and two short lines in the bottom corners say how to move.
The rule
At rest the eye carries no text. Numerals are allowed in one era only, 2026, because measuring is that era's own idea.
One exception was added on purpose: a single instruction in each bottom corner, shown once the eye has opened. Scroll to blink to the next era. Click the eye to enter.
Why
Every design that put words on the eye was built and rejected. Each one explained the idea, and each explanation sat between the visitor and the thing they had come to look at.
What survived was to let the eye do the telling. Each era puts one small sign in the pupil that means "this opens": a block cursor, a parked arrow, a search caret.
The corner lines
Even those went through two rounds. White text with a difference blend vanished on some eras. A key inside a frosted pill read as a toggle, and the eye is the only control. The final lines sit on a soft dark pool with no box, and their small glyphs act out the idea: the eye glyph blinks when the era changes, the pupil glyph widens when you point at the iris.