Scary Washing Machine The Story

On Monday the 8th of June 2009, 2053hrs I listed my washing machine for sale on a local online auction site.

I write this wifeless and broken and what I have been through haunts me and I don’t think I will ever fully recover.

I’d been living with this washing machine for over a year and it was driving me up the wall. Some friends of ours had ‘kindly’ donated it to us, saying it was getting a bit long in the tooth and was ‘a bit noisey’ , they’d had bought themselves a new one and we didn’t have one so naturally we accepted graciously.

Somewhere in late 2007 it arrived, in the back of a car, it was a little ‘dated’ but hey it was a freebie, we weren’t going to complain. After shaking of hands, and a nice cup of tea, they got in their car and left, leaving us alone with the machine, staring blankly at us like a technological monolithic monument to 1980’s whiteware design. It didn’t fit through the door frame with the door still in place so out came the screwdriver and off came the door. I really should have plugged it in and tried it before hand before disassembling the house to get it in to place. Once in place and plumbed up I stood back, admiring it’s glory, it’s retro lines, it’s smooth flush interface panel. I should have turned it on at this point too but I didn’t. Instead I screwed the door back on and in doing that I also sealed my fate. Like winding the brass screws into a coffin bringing closure to a funeral.

Of course once going through all that, it was pretty safe from me ever getting the energy together to undo it all again and get the washing machine out.

And that’s when we turned it on.

It seemd to work ok, it filled, it clicked, it whirred, it hummed, it agitated. It emptied, it rinsed, it drained,..... and then it started to spin.
I was sitting in the lounge, (when I say lounge I mean whole house really. It was a small 1 bedroom unit and from my seat in the lounge I could see every wall, window and light bulb in the whole flat. We had 6 lightbulbs.) and that’s when the final pumping cycle began. I later learned to recognise this ominous growl and whine and these days that’s my cue to evacuate but back then I didn’t know and our friends left me powerless and uneducated to its wrath.
As the last bit of water was pumped out and it clicked into gear I immediately knew there was something strange a foot. The rumble was too low, almost subaudible but it had a clatter in it’s note that said ‘You’re going to regret living with me’. And it was right.
The temperature started to drop in the room, white frosty steam started appearing in my breath, the light bulbs dimmed, flickering as they dulled, and then it hit. Full force, completely out of no-where like a freight train roaring through an empty station at full speed in the night, while you stand at the platform clutching at your belongings as the wind roars and the scraping heavy steel monster goes hurtling past in front of you at 100mph. The difference though between a freight train and the washing machine is that in a matter of seconds the train has passed and you are back sitting in silence with your beating heart. With the washing machine it’s relentless. You have nowhere to hide, the sound will find you and bash on your skull with an aluminium frypan and snatch the words away from your mouth as you yell out for help.
I got used to sitting outside on my doorstep a lot that year. It was a concrete house and the walls were thick. Outside you could still hear the machine smashing away inside like a rock drill and but least it took away the frypan on the head element.
That was my introduction to the washing machine and it remained like that for a good year.

And then we moved house.

I tried to offload the devil spawn machine onto the next tenant but he must have been a wiser man than me because he declined, like I should have and would have if given the chance again.
We took it with us to the new house, which was bigger and required that we buy some more furniture. We were also saving for our wedding so the new washing machine slipped down the priority list a bit.
The new house was great, roomy, warm, 127 light-bulbs this time and quiet ......well at least until washing time. I think the move must have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. What ever thread of bearings or dampeners that was left on the machine was now gone.
Its louder now than it was in the old place, and despite the increase in space, and general proximity to the washing machine it still made life as hard as it possibly could.

I had shifted my business home and so while at home, in the hope of preserving my evening peace I would put the washing on during the day.
If the phone rang I couldn’t even pick it up. Even though the machine was away in another room I could still not hear a word anyone on the phone said and for them it sounded like I was on a ladder standing in the jetwash of a running 747 engine.
It was one of these days the most peculiar and frightening thing of my life happened to me.
I had put a particularly lumpy load of towels on and the spin cycle was just beginning, I heard that out of balance knock you get just before a really out of balance machine gets proper out of balance - it's like a kid kicking in the inside of the outer casing. I thought I’d go and stop the machine before all hell broke loose and as I walked across the landing towards the laundry I heard it start. I’ve never heard anything like it before, it was like the freight train noise from before but this time it sounded like it was full of screaming tortured souls and scrap steel, scraping down a concrete hill into hell on it’s side.

I got to the door and I knew something was up, the air was bitterly cold, the washing machine was vibrating so hard it was hard to focus on and the air inside the laundry seemed to be rushing around in eddies with loose washing spiraling around on the floor.
Then it started getting properly weird, with a crack like a bullwhip a blue spark appeared over the washing machine and seemed to hover as a small ball of green light no bigger than a marble. I didn’t know I was looking then at a time portal opening, I had no idea, in fact I was fascinated, though a little scared so I stepped into the room. As my right foot touched the lino the marble of light made a ripping noise as it tore itself open into a thin disc of light with jagged wispy edges about 1/2 a meter in diameter. As it opened the roar increased, the clothing on the floor was sucked up off the floor and into the disc like a jet engine lifting snow off the tarmac. As the air rushed into the disc, I was pushed towards the disc but the flow of air roaring in the door.

Things escalated fast, one second I was sliding on the lino towards the light in my socks with no traction on the floor and the next thing I remember I was holding onto the deep freezechest freezer while my feet and legs were swept up and out from under me and sucked towards the disc which was now about a metre in diameter. The roar was deafening, the light bulb was swinging wildly around and around above my head creating flashing shadows which grew and shrank as the light spun around.

The flow of air increased to a typhoon, my hair was pinned flat, I could feel the skin on my face deforming against it’s pressure and my pants and socks were sucked clean off my lower half and into the howling vortex. I turned my head against the airflow to shelter my eyes from the wind and looked back over my shoulder into the eye like scar in space-time which hovered above my washing machine. A cupbord flew open, the air was filled with a flurry of washing powder which whistled past me in a flash stinging my skin like sand whipped along a beach. An iron sailled past my head and into the hole, quick as a flash, the cord briefly trailing behind it before it was gone. The machine was still at full throttle thumping away on it’s own like nothing was wrong and I could see it’s energy was somehow feeding the screaming vortex. As I looked back at the vortex I saw it. Through the centre of the disc I could see light, a yellow sky, land, a horizon broken by trees, strange looking trees but trees all the same.

In the middle of the scene I saw a shape, a shape with a mouth, and as I looked at that shape for a hint of recognisable features it dawned on me that the face staring back at me into the wind was a dinosaur. As the wind roared past me I guess it carried the scent of prey and despite the roaring portal hovering at the dinosaur’s head height howling into it’s face it looked in, looking for the source. I saw it dip it’s head and look forward over it’s snout and glistening row of ivory white teeth and as it’s pupils focused on my I screamed. I screamed like I had never screamed before. I think I even let go, you know, like you do when you’re really really scared. As the mouth opened my eyes closed, bracing for the point where I would be no longer able to hold on against the wind and fly like a leaf into it’s waiting jaws. I clenched my jaw and strained against the wind, my knuckles white with wind chill and fear there was a sudden noise like a knife being pushed into a car tire but played backwards and as that noise rose the howling gale subsided until it was gone. The wind stopped, the temperature rose suddenly like when the sun comes out form behind a cloud and I opened my eyes to see the portal was gone.

As the washing machine clattered to a halt I saw the plug on the floor as if it had been there the whole time, plucked from the wall by the wind and in doing so stopping the machine and closing the portal. I climbed down off the deepfreeze, pants-less and walked backwards slowly out of the room as the machine beeped end of cycle even though it was still unplugged.....

To be continued.....