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Eli had always been curious, but his curiosity often leaned toward the "what-could-possibly-go-wrong?" variety. One rainy afternoon, stuck in his grandmother's basement while she napped upstairs, Eli's restless fingers found the old washing machine—a relic from the 1960s with knobs that clicked and dials that spun with an oddly satisfying resistance.

"Heavy Duty, Delicate, Normal..." Eli murmured, turning the dials this way and that. But it was the small, rust-edged button marked with an unfamiliar symbol—like an infinity loop crossed with a lightning bolt—that caught his attention. Without hesitation, he pressed it.

The machine hummed, then roared. Lights flickered, the floor vibrated, and before Eli could step back, a whirl of colors engulfed him.

When the spinning stopped, Eli found himself standing—not in the basement, but in a bustling marketplace with towering stone structures around him. People in tunics and sandals bustled past, speaking rapid Latin. A chariot clattered nearby, nearly grazing him.

"Ancient Rome?" Eli gasped, eyes wide.

Realizing he had traveled through time, Eli's first instinct was to get back home. He frantically checked his pockets—no washing machine in sight. But then he noticed a faint, pulsing glow on his wrist: a small, metallic band he definitely hadn’t been wearing before.

The band had the same infinity-loop-lightning-bolt symbol. Eli fiddled with it, trying to mimic the sequence of dials and presses he'd done on the machine. Nothing happened.

Thinking fast, Eli decided to blend in. He bartered for a cloak using a shiny coin he found in his pocket, hoping to avoid attracting too much attention. Days passed as he observed the era, picking up basic Latin and understanding the culture. He discovered that proximity to certain metal objects seemed to make the wristband glow stronger.

Eventually, near the Roman Forum, Eli stumbled upon an ancient sundial with strange engravings—eerily similar to the washing machine’s dials. Desperation guiding him, he arranged the sundial’s markings to match his memory of the washer settings. The wristband vibrated, the air shimmered, and with a blinding flash, Eli was yanked through time again.

He landed—smack in the middle of a medieval banquet hall, face-to-face with a bewildered king holding a turkey leg.

"You've got to be kidding me," Eli muttered, realizing his adventure through time had just begun.