By 6:00 PM, the northern industrial district was completely paralyzed.
The sky had gone the color of old concrete. No sun. Just a flat, gray weight pressing down on the rooftops. The air was cold and it bit at the skin. It smelled like diesel exhaust, rust, and the faint sourness of metal shavings that never really left the ground.
The factory owners had delivered on their promise.
Thousands of workers had walked off the assembly lines. The sound that should have been there was gone. No more grinding of gears. No more rhythmic _thud-thud-thud_ of presses. No more whine of saws. The silence was so complete it made my ears ring.
