Polluted

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Cassandra could hear the shouting from her narrow cubicle. He was vile. She had heard him treat employees like that before, but today it got to her. Maybe it was the flower garden she passed on the way to work. Or the elderly man feeding squirrels in the park outside her sterile glass office building. Whatever the trigger was, it sent her into action. She could not take the CEO's cruelty anymore.

She pushed herself away from her desk, and stomped through his gaping office door.

"Do you know how you sound, Mr. Perkins? Do you know that everyone in this office loathes you? You can stop yelling at Lucy now. Yell at me. I don't care. After today, you won't see me anymore. Coming in here every morning I feel as though I am deliberately exposing myself to pollution. The pollution of bigotry. Of cruelty. Of arrogance and bullying.

"C'mon Lucy, there are other jobs. Show this man your back. He is not worthy to look on your face."

Cassandra took Lucy's hands and walked with her out of Perkins' office.

"Don't look back," she told Lucy. "Pick up our purses and we'll find another future for ourselves."

The two women stopped at their desks, waved goodbye to their co-workers, and walked out the door. The future, for both of them, had begun.

This was written in response to @marriannewest's prompt, Pollution.