sure wood

For the past ten years, Edgar Nork made a habit of finding excuses to stay in bed. He rarely left the house, unless it was to go to work. Friends often called him, inviting him out to places--bars, restaurants, local events and parties--but he always declined, citing a lack of sleep or having to readjust to a sleep schedule which he could never establish with any regularity. Edgar blamed his behavior on his job--working third shift at the old cigarette factory--a gloomy fat building on the outskirts of town. In the early part of the twentieth century, when the factory was first built, many believed the factory would save the town's dead economy, but this never happened. The men of the town left their hard-labor jobs in neighboring counties to work at the cigarette factory but were subsequently laid off when due to a lack of revenue the factory could no longer afford to keep them employed. Still, the factory kept its operations going, even as buildings housing more successful business ventures sprang up around it. Eventually: something resembling a metropolis was born and the old factory was the one stubborn anachronism which refused to be weeded out. Glinting glass exteriors reflected the gloom of the factory as people in cars found ways to ignore its being in the way of traveling from point A to point B. There was a peculiar beauty to its tar-like bricks and bloated skeleton that appealed to Edgar. He never said it outright: but this was the reason he took a job there in the first place, having been to school and qualified to work far better-paying jobs. tbc.