"Etude" by Vera Novikova, a "Mayonnaise" contest winner


My Creative Writing Contest "Mayonnaise" has come to its inevitable end, which is good because I can finally share the amazing stories by the amazing winners! The prompt for the contest was simple: Write a story that ends with the word "Mayonnaise."

I am beyond thrilled to present another winner Vera Novikova. Her approach stood out immediately - she wrote a poem! Enjoy (and don't forget to change your password)!

✽✽✽

Etude

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, 
you should not blame the wind for 
revealing them to the trees.

Khalil Gibran

Prelude

A really gifted writer
Would start by setting context
To make her story brighter,
Way vivid and more honest.

My piece will lack specifics,
Agenda and the looks.
No Pulitzer Scientifics.
A simple story of a crook.


Overture – part one

Feeling like a Sherlock Holmes
In his shabby study
A man was roaming someone’s home
Alone, without a buddy.

What was he searching in that place?
A proof? A photo? Files?
Perhaps, adultery took place.
So he went some extra miles?

Scrutinizing every inch
Among the dusty books,
He came up with words like ‘Grinch’,
‘Bumblebee’ and ‘Schnook’.

‘Picture1’, ‘Chatbook’ and ‘Princess’.
‘Dragon’, ‘pokemon’ and ‘Guinness’.
‘Million2’, ‘default’ and ‘Eva’.
‘New York’, ‘London’ and ‘Geneva’.

‘Google’, ‘Microsoft’ and ‘Tesla’.
‘Hugo Boss’, ‘Chanel’, ‘Lacoste’.
‘Prada’, ‘Gucci’, ‘MarcO’Polo’.
‘Ecco’, ‘Zara’, ‘Coca-Cola’.

‘Qwerty’, ‘Iloveyou’ and ‘heaven’
‘1-2-3-4-5-6-7’.
‘Monkey’, ‘Angel’, ‘Basketball’
’10-10-10’ and that was all.


Interlude

A fun fact. Did you happen to know that 57% of people who have already been scammed in phishing attacks still haven’t changed their password? (Statistics from the Internet)


Overture – part two. Finale.

In a furry and despair
The man smashed the keyboard on the chair.
As soon as the bits all fell apart
He finally understood the missing part.

He felt such joy and such surprise
The man could not believe his eyes
He simply sniggered at his find
Why on earth was he so blind?

Let me finish my song on this note,
Leaving the ending open.
You may return and reread the quote
You’ll see why it was chosen.

And in case you haven’t guessed it yet
The laptop code was not ‘courgette’.
The owner used the most uncommon password phrase.
It was the food word ‘mayonnaise’.

✽✽✽

Make sure to watch our live stream with all the winners to get some inspiration and some valuable writing tips on how to write a winning story.

And absolutely make sure to read more stories from the contest:
- "It will leave a stain" by Irina Lutsenko (me)
- "Hypnotized" by Elizaveta Zanozina
- "To hell with Mayonnaise" by Evgenia Karabatova

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