What happens to you when you see this prompt on your screen?

Creating a password can be as agonizing and fraught with drama as beginning or ending a relationship. How much do you reveal, how much can you hide? What secret code will unlock this other’s heart? Will the secret code elude you in the moments when you most need it? Do you spell this other’s name (maybe using symbols and numbers will make it less obvious) or perhaps string the first letters of each word in a sentence expressing your wish: iwinmy  or maybe it’s better to be positive icdbnt.

Thanks to Ian Urbana and Paul Saffo, I have discovered a new writing genre: “crypto haiku”

“Humans like, even need, to imbue things with meaning…we are prone to organizing symbols into language….We try to make the best of our circumstances, converting our shackles into art.” Ian Urbana, The Secret Life of Passwords, The New York Times.

Writing Prompt: With this in mind, decipher this password:&t4Yh@t by creating the character who imagined it.