Cassandra Dunn's Writings
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Short Story
Jan.18.2013
Rougarou, an Online Journal, Vol. 8, Issue 2
Karma
I recognized him on sight. Not that I’d ever seen him before. I knew him in a past-life sort of way, like we’d been in some great battle together, or had died of the plague in neighboring beds. Or maybe we’d been married, had lived on our farm with our eight kids and I’d made fresh bread over a fire every morning while he milked the cows....
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Short Story
Dec.03.2012
Literary House Review
The Universe at Work
“How about you?” he asked, pale brown eyes looking me over, a blank canvas.
“Nah, I’m good,” I said, half-turning, pausing in my escape. I knew he’d have a comment.
“You mean, you don’t have any?”
“Nope.” This time I pointed my feet toward the parking lot, slid my keys out of the outside pocket of my shoulder bag.
“I’ll get you my info...
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Short Story
Dec.03.2012
Midwest Literary Magazine: Bearing North
The Rocking Horse
The party, like most of my friends’ parties, wasn’t kid-friendly. I spent much of it chasing Dylan around, blocking him from ascending or descending stairs, pulling discarded napkins and half-full cups of alcoholic beverages from his grasp. After nearly an hour of this, Sam, gracious host and husband of my best friend, saw the...
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Short Story
Dec.03.2012
The MacGuffin
Light Sleeper
I am a light sleeper. It’s not something anyone wants to be, except maybe a night guard or a soldier in a foxhole. I wish there was some way to train myself to sleep harder, the way my mother does, so dead to the world that even a queasy child shaking her in the night, looking for comfort, can’t wake her. A gust of wind can wake me,...
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Dec.03.2012
All Things Girl
Pisces Moon
“You can’t honestly be serious,” I said. I knew it was cold, even for me, even for the circumstances. After all, the man was crying. Sobbing, really. But surely it wasn’t my job to comfort him, after all we’d been through.
We were in the middle of a TV show, and I, for one, wanted to see how it ended. I waited, my thumb hovering above...
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Short Story
Dec.03.2012
322 Review
The Baker
Evan had a photographic memory, knew how to count cards, never forgot a person’s name. These things made people consider him smart, but he knew different. He could stare at a book for hours, the words sliding off the page each time he tried to reach the end of a sentence, the meanings running across the desk, dropping to the floor,...
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Short Story
Dec.03.2012
Read Short Fiction
The Minx
Like me, the minx was a ten o’clock regular at Lily’s Cafe. She wasn’t friendly, although she wasn’t rude, she just never returned my smiles or made any effort to exchange greetings. She always hid behind her oversized sunglasses, feigning absorption in the man beside her, a magenta smile on her face, a girlish giggle squeaking out of her...
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Short Story
Dec.03.2012
Fix It Broken, Issue #3
Samuel
She named him Samuel. It wasn’t the name he was supposed to have, not the one they’d carefully chosen after weeks of lobbing names back and forth, but she wanted to save that name, the other one, for a baby that lived. Mitch thought it was silly, naming a baby that wasn’t even a baby anymore, but Ellie needed it, a name to call him, something...
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Short Story
Dec.03.2012
Clapboard House
The Diplomacy of Marriage
Theresa lay awake and listened. The drip of a faucet, maybe the one in the guest bathroom. The bark of a dog in the distance, possibly Misty chasing off raccoons. Abby fussing, then settling, next door, the poor thing still struggling with her cold. Theresa...
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Short Story
Dec.03.2012
Every Writer's Resource
Stripped Clean
The bed is the biggest problem. It smells like him. Even after stripping it to wash the sheets, as I lay down on the bare mattress waiting for the dryer to finish working its magic, cleansing me of him, I can smell him. It’s a slightly sweet, powdery smell, laced with a hint of something masculine, maybe just pheromones. It makes me dizzy,...
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About Cassandra
Cassandra Dunn received her MFA in creative writing from Mills College. She was a semifinalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, and a finalist in Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers. Her stories have appeared in All Things Girl, Midwest...
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