– Fiction by Helen Spencer –
Featured in Issue 19 of Dreamers Magazine and winner of the 2025 Pen Parentis Fellowship!

Out of breath after climbing three flights of stairs to her new apartment, she muscled her way in the door and set down her heavy shopping bags. The apartment was completely empty aside from a few stacks of boxes against the living room wall. She was careful in the move to take only the few belongings she felt sure she could call “Hers” – not “His,” not “Ours.”
With only three hours to unpack before daycare pickup, she hastily grabbed a box labeled “Kitchen and Stuff,” sat on the floor and sliced the box open with a key.
Here she found kitchen items from her old Studio apartment on Joralemon Street in Brooklyn Heights. Living there had been a free and hopeful time in her life. She was single, rising fast in her career and had a tight network of city-dwelling friends who had not yet flocked to the ‘Burbs to start their “real lives.”
In these years, she would venture out on Saturday mornings after a long week of travel with her demanding job. She would grab a latte at her favorite coffee shop and wander in and out of bookstores, boutiques and her favorite family-owned cooking supply store on Atlantic Avenue.
Among the treasures she purchased there was a stack of ceramic nested mixing bowls. She lifted the brightly-colored bowls out of the box and reflected on the one that was missing. The largest bowl in the set was a pretty shade of blue, and it had been her favorite.
She winced remembering how it had broken into thirty pieces after her husband angrily hurled it down the basement stairs of the home they had once shared. She could still hear the initial crack and then the scatter of all the small pieces, some of which she was still finding and cleaning up three months later.
She couldn’t remember what had set him off that day. What she had or hadn’t said or done. A lot of the memories of her marriage were like that. Like clicking through a Viewfinder, jumping from still frame to still frame. Discrete moments were crystal clear, but the chain of the events connecting them was hard to piece together.
Her decision to leave had been reached after dozens of instances of shattered glasses, cracked tables, dented car doors, punched walls. His yelling. Her bruising. Their child’s cries. She couldn’t change the past. She couldn’t change her husband. She was unsure of how to change herself. For now, she could only unpack one box at a time, attempting to create a new order from all the chaos.
She carried the stack of mixing bowls to the kitchen and placed them gently on the shelf. The rest of her cabinets were empty, but there was a piece of that girl from Joralemon Street back down from the attic. And that was a start.

About the Author – Helen Spencer
Helen Spencer’s family cultivated in her a love for reading and writing at a very young age. An introvert at heart who is often lost inside her own head, she has long cherished the opportunity to process experiences and exercise her imagination through writing. Her formal education is in science, music and public health, and she currently works full time in a leadership role in the corporate sector. She is the mother of a beautifully spirited toddler and is fumbling through first-time parenthood with all of its joys and frustrations.
As a new parent, writing has afforded her the opportunity to explore new dimensions of who she is and her evolving perspective on the world and the people in it.
“Mixing Bowls” will be her first publication. The piece is about summoning the courage to reset and the importance of reconnecting with who you are when life knocks you off course.
Meanwhile, at Dreamers…
Results of the 2024 Dreamers Flash Contest

Congratulations to the winners of the 2024 Dreamers Flash Fiction and Nonfiction Contest. There were so many incredible stories this year!
Dreamers Magazine Issue 19 Now Available

We’re pleased to announce the release of Issue 19 of the Dreamers Magazine, featuring our Flash Contest winners. Get your copy now!