electrolux

The children were sleeping. She’d already cleaned the dining room where they’d just had their lunch. The dishes were drying on their wire rack beside the sink. She turned off all the lights on the main floor and sat by the window. Bees were hovering around the new tulips in the backyard. They didn’t look like “busy bees” to her. She knew busy.
She called her boyfriend in Pittsburgh. He told her he was having another 13-hour day in hell, he would text her later. Not knowing what else to do with herself, she masturbated quickly and quietly in the downstairs bathroom. She imagined her boyfriend’s flawless lips on her clitoris as she came. She washed her hands.
A school bus drove by. The children went ape-shit for school buses. They wouldn’t even mind that it was the short bus, just so long as it was goldenrod and rolling. They loved school buses. They also loved trucks, and any vehicle moving in reverse.
She sat listlessly on the couch and wished half-heartedly her life could travel in reverse. She was in such a limbo at this nanny job. She made excellent money—under the table, of course. And she was busy, occupied, working 50 hours a week. She was able to drive to see her boyfriend every weekend, and he her. She had her own apartment.
But to her it all felt so typical. So normal and so goddamn redundant. Monday through Friday: feed the kids, clothe the kids, clean up after the kids. Break up a fight, read the same four Curious George books over and over. Go back to her empty flat and wish for the 15 thousandth time that it weren’t empty. The weekends were undoubtedly better, but just as predictable. A two-hour drive, dinner, phenomenal sex, sex, sex. Drive home in time for work.
She held her cell phone tightly in her hand, willing it to buzz with news from someone—anyone. It sat silent and stoic. Nobody would involve her in their life on a day as glorious and warm and clear as this day was. They were all sunbathing or playing Ultimate Frisbee, or suffering the injustices of their own day jobs.
She was sitting, staring out the window, thinking all these thoughts about her mediocre life, when her phone finally buzzed. An unfamiliar number with an untraceable area code danced on the blue-white screen. She selected to open the message. It read: Go to the basement.
Not a chance, she replied instantly.
Trust me, no harm will befall you. Her interest was piqued, as words like “befall” were rare in her cell phone’s inbox. And she was a trusting person. So she stood from the sofa and opened the accordion door that led to the basement she rarely had occasion to enter. It looked as quiet and un-foreboding as always, so she placed a foot on the top step. No harm befell her, so she walked smoothly down the remaining stairs. At the bottom, however, she noticed a slight difference in the basement décor. Rather than the late-90s washer and dryer that had stood to the left since her employment began, the family had installed a set of those monstrously large Electrolux washing/drying machines. She stepped forward to inspect.
When she was within arm’s reach of the washing machine, her phone vibrated again. At this point she became acutely aware of some supernatural force coming into play, as the basement had always been a hopeless dead zone.
This message: See if you can fit.
She was about to send back a sarcastic response when a second message popped up: No harm will befall you. Just try.
So she pulled open the bubbled door, and was surprised at just how big the machine looked from this angle. Text or no, she probably would have wondered at her ability to fit inside the machine. Of course, she knew better. But she couldn’t imagine a single reason why she, a responsible and mostly-grown woman shouldn’t go head-first into an industrial-sized automatic laundry basin.
The reason became very clear the moment the door slammed closed behind her and the machine seemed to turn itself on. The basin she was encased in began turning slowly and she knew the water would flood in and wash away her life at any moment. She wasn’t afraid of dying. She was, most irrationally, afraid of her employers firing her when she failed to retrieve the children from their nap.
The phone buzzed a final time: Hold on.
The basin began turning faster and faster, turning her head-over-bottom a hundred times before she seemed to lose consciousness.

“Ma’am, you really don’t belong inside the washing equipment. Not only is it a safety hazard, but it’s a poor example for the other customers.” She looked up to see who was addressing her, but was met by a great pot belly. She craned her neck to see his face, but only made it as far as his “Lowe’s Home Improvement” nametag before he crouched down and looked her in the eyes. “Do you need help getting out?”
He was old. Too old to be working at Lowe’s, in her opinion. His shaggy grey hair made her guess mid-fifties before she noticed his astonishing green eyes and his clean white smile. “You alright?” he asked quietly, with more kindness than he had used when first addressing her.
“I don’t know where I am,” she stated, before realizing that she did, in fact, know she was in an Electrolux washing machine, which was inside a Lowe’s Home Improvement store. She corrected, “I don’t know how I got here.”
The man pursed his lips. “This is going to be fun,” he said before reaching out a medium-sized hand to help her climb out.
When she stood, she found that she was very close to the man’s height, and that was saying something, as she was only 5’2”. “Thanks,” she mumbled before looking down at her body and making sure everything was intact and where it belonged. She remembered the phone in her hand and checked it for any new messages. His name is ¬¬Eli. You can trust him. The message startled her. She couldn’t imagine why she would need to trust this man for anything more than showing her the quickest route to exit the store. She turned to the older man.
“Eli?” she offered.
He raised his dark eyebrows. “Yes?”
“What’s the quickest way out of this store?”
He considered it a moment. “Well that depends on where you want to go.” He looked into her deep brown eyes with his vibrant green ones. “Do you know where you want to go?”
She checked her cell phone, but no new instructions had buzzed in. She shrugged her shoulders and told Eli the only thing she could think: “I trust you.”
At this, he smiled again. When he smiled he looked like a rough 40, if that. She decided she liked him, and found it easy to trust him. “We’d better make haste, then,” Eli said, taking her hand and leading her past the lawn mowers and propane grills to the door marked EXIT.
She cast her eyes once more around the interior of the store. It was just a normal Lowe’s, complete with customers and employees and, well, home improvement products. She watched the automatic doors glide open with a hiss, and followed Eli as he stepped through them.

The doors led to a train platform, of all places. She looked down and saw that she was still holding Eli’s calloused hand. She followed his arm up to his body, and discovered he was no longer dressed as a Lowe’s employee, but was wearing a three-piece suit and a pocket watch. His hair was different: still long, but combed back from his face, and darker somehow. He turned to look at her with a satisfied smile on his mouth.
“What is this?” she asked, once again bringing the obvious to the table.
“It’s a train station, m’dear.”
“Yes, but where are we going?” The phone buzzed in her hand. Go shopping. You look very foolish in that outfit. She looked down at her outfit and couldn’t help but agree with the mysterious texter. What had been a very casual pair of jeans and tennis shoes now looked embarrassingly out of place in contrast to the skirts and bustles and dresses she was seeing on the women milling about the platform.
“We’re going shopping,” Eli said quietly. “Our train doesn’t leave for another hour or so.”
They exited the train station onto a busy street in what appeared to be Buffalo, NY several years before. They walked swiftly down the road and found a Sears Roebuck. They ducked inside and Eli was very efficient in helping her find a more suitable outfit. They selected a skirt and blouse combination, and Eli was showing her the lace-up boots when she felt it necessary to protest.
“I’m not wearing lace-up boots. The skirt is long enough to cover my Vans. Let’s just get out of here.”
Eli looked at her with soft eyes and said that would be fine. He purchased the outfit and waited patiently while she put it on over her jeans and t-shirt. He consulted his pocket watch and asked if she’d like to grab something to eat before heading back to the station. She declined politely as she tucked in her blouse. She felt foolish, but at least she looked like she belonged.
When they’d returned to the train station and found a wrought-iron bench on which to wait, she decided it was time to start asking questions. She crossed her feet at the ankles, as she had seen a woman in the department store doing. She placed her hands in her lap and tried to look like any other Buffalonian woman waiting for her train. She nudged Eli with her elbow as he sat beside her.
“Yes?” he asked, turning to look at her with those clear, round emeralds.
She whispered as she spoke, not wanting to interest any of the other travelers nearby. “What’s going on?”
“We’re waiting for our train.”
“I’m getting tired of your Captain Obvious answers. Can you just tell me what is happening? How’d we get here, and why are we leaving? Where are we going?”
Eli smiled with his lips closed and turned to address her more comfortably. His voice was lowered as well. “You needed a break in the monotony. Am I right?”
She shrugged. “Well, yeah. But I was thinking something along the lines of a road trip with my boyfriend.”
He nodded his understanding. “I’m sure you’ve heard the old Mick Jagger adage, ‘You can’t always get what you want . . . but you may find, you get what you need.’”
“Yes, I’m familiar with the song. Tell me what I need, then.”
“Well, when you went into the washing machine, you went back in time. Not very far, mind you. Only two or three months. But when we left the store, we zipped back about seventy. Guess they didn’t want you traveling such a great distance alone.”
“They?”
“Whoever’s on the other end of that phone of yours,” Eli replied pleasantly, indicating the device in her hands.
She looked at it, and then back at Eli. “You mean you don’t even know who’s been texting me?”
Eli shook his head and retrieved his own cell phone from the pocket of his pin-striped pants. He used his thumbs to navigate through the menu for a moment before holding it up to her. Take Mia where she needs to go, read the message on his screen. The number was the same as on her phone.
Mia sat back, feeling a little defeated knowing her guide was only being guided by the same mysterious individual that had guided her so foolishly into the washing machine in the first place. She shook her head slowly. “Well, why’d you listen if you don’t know who it is?”
Eli seemed to consider this for a long time. “Two reasons. I am a nice person. I would help any wayward young woman from the clutches of a washing machine. And second, I’ve been looking for some adventure of my own for a while. It’s not cool to be working at Lowe’s when you’re thirty-two years old.”
Mia’s breath caught in her chest. He was only eight years older than her! “So you’re an actual Lowe’s employee? It wasn’t just another costume, like you’re wearing now?”
Eli smiled sadly. “Nope. No costume. I have been at that job since I started college.” He had a far-away look in his eyes and Mia felt a tinge of regret on his behalf. If nannying at 24 was bad, she couldn’t imagine cashiering at 32.
They were quiet a moment, both lost in the thoughts that come from being older than you want with less life experience than you’d prefer. “Any idea where this train’s headed?”
Eli glanced at his own cell phone. “The past, I guess. Can’t imagine how much further back we can go on this continent, though.”
They didn’t say anything else until the train pulled into the station. Eli helped her up the step, and allowed her to take the seat by the window, which she thought was very kind. They sat side-by-side and watched the old Buffalo scenery fly by the window. They were heading east, that much was clear. They were going faster than any 1940s steam engine should probably be capable of going, but they both knew better than to doubt the kind of powers that were at hand. As the train chugged into colonial-era New York City—or New Amsterdam as it probably was at this point, Mia was filled with excitement for the first time. She had never been to NYC, as it was.
The moment they stepped off the train, the large engine and all their fellow travelers disappeared behind them. Eli cast her a puzzling look, and she returned it. They took hands again and walked into the glorified town that would later become the greatest city on earth.