Featured in the Weekend Write-In's 2021 July podcast episode, "Escape." Link to episode is in the in-line comment -> 

"There's gotta be an exit here somewhere," I say to myself. Dr. Know It All's gigantic dictionary journal lies open on the sofa. My reflection sparkles in the door of the golden time machine as I pace back and forth in the musty room.

Dr. Know It All seems to have experimented quite a bit before creating his time machine. Upon a shelf sits a jar full of flies, two smelly chemical flasks and a grumpy stone statue. And seriously--what kind of mad person keeps four clocks that tick asynchronously in their living room? But despite the insanity of it all, the setting and thrill of not being cooped up at home gives me a sense of adventure. And nostalgia.

I am clearly going crazy. Unless I find the last missing word in the doctor's journal entry and decipher his message, I won't be able to travel back in time to my own home. Who knows what time it even is here.

I stared at the clocks, pondering for ideas. The clocks look like they all came from the different time periods that I traveled through to obtain the missing words and fill the journal. There were a couple pendulum clocks from the 1800s and 1900s, a 21st-century Roman numeral clock, and a metal contraption that must have been from the futuristic utopian world. Now that was a strange experience. But I'm certain I didn't miss any clues back there. Besides, the time travel sickness is getting to me. "I'm never time travelling again," I muttered.

Something tells me the last clue is hiding in this wretched room. I swept this place from up to down already, but....

I squint at the journal. _____ (adjective) _____ (noun) are our prisons. They leech intelligence from the brains of our children, and threaten humankind! But with my Brain and Memory Enhancing Elixir, I shall change history so we may return to seeing the world through our own eyes.

If only I couold decipher these last words on my own! I'm sure that's what the time machine means when it asks for a "password."

"Prison...what can be our prison? Stupidity....lack of common sense....no, too many words. Dr. Know It All is obsessed with making books and written text obsolete, but there's no way I can guess the specific book he's referencing!" I groan. "He's just a crazy fugitive scientist with a potion that doesn't even work....what a creative name for an elixir. He can be pretty literal sometimes...."

Then an idea hit. A vague memory swims to the surface, like deja vu. Of course!

I yank open the time machine and punch in the password. Video games.

The lights blink on and off. My stomach swims. I sink to the ground and curl up in a fetal position, enduring the nausea as the time machine trembles and whines, plunging into darkness.

When I wake, I'm sitting in front of my computer screen. My browser is open on the TVO Kids website with educational games. I scroll through, eagerly looking for them...but my favourite flash games from childhood are no longer there.

I sigh and look at the calendar. "Farewell, 2020...I took you for granted." 

This references flash games that were central in my childhood. Flash games stopped being supported for free as of December 2020.