Prose Poem or Narrative Poem: The Color Seller

There is a trade called a color seller.
Beyond a forest deep in the highlands, reached after half a day of traveling by train and car from the city, a father and his daughter run a workshop. The father is a man of few words. He says that if he talks while working, his thoughts will mix in and cause discoloration. <Colors> are delicate things.
The daughter is still an apprentice and, unlike her father, is quite talkative. She isn't allowed to handle the work yet, but the father secretly believes that a <color> infused with his daughter's chatter would surely turn out to be something wonderful.
The daughter braids her hair and wraps it around her head, wearing a gray denim apron. She does this because she would be scolded if her hair fell, and her father chides her that any color other than gray is a distraction. Even when she goes into the city, she wears nothing more stylish than a white shirt and jeans.

The color seller's morning starts early, perhaps even before sunrise. Before the morning glow, he checks the condition of the <colors> completed by the previous day. If even a hint of madder red appears, they will discolor, after all. In the dim workshop, the father holds each transparent bottle up to the air of the room. To an outsider, the bottles look colorless and transparent, and in the near-total darkness, the daughter still cannot see what he is looking at. Silently, as told, she hands him the bottles labeled with names one by one, receives them back, and hands them over again, while occasionally the father points to a different shelf with his fingertip. It is a signal that they are not yet ready to be given to a customer.

When the sun rises, early customers come to pick up their <colors>. Looking out from the workshop window, the father takes one of the bottles and places it in a special bag. A special bag that does not let light through. The daughter stands by the door, and when a customer enters, she quickly closes it. The product must not be damaged under any circumstances. Although finished items rarely discolor, he takes every possible precaution. If the customer is a regular, they take the bag and leave immediately without idle chatter, but it is not so with a first-time customer. They take out the contents and invariably tilt their heads in suspicion first. Then they say to the father, "There's nothing in here." The father says nothing. Instead, the daughter says, "Please try using it; we have included instructions. If that doesn't work, there is no charge." The customer leaves the room still looking dissatisfied, as if they have something more to say. The father silently returns to his work. Seeing that no one else is likely to come for a while, the daughter goes to the nearby lodge to make breakfast. The workshop smells of various colors, chemicals, and sometimes something like paint thinner, so it is impossible to eat there. Of course, it can also interfere with making <colors>.

By the way, what exactly is the father making? It is not paint, nor is it pigment. It is not ink, nor is it corporate color matching. The daughter says you can tell by the customers. Those who visit the workshop are musicians, writers, directors, film producers, actors, and designers. People called artists or creators. It would be fine if they were people who deal with visible colors like painters, but they rarely seem to come. Besides, the father does not turn away ordinary people, but <colors> are made to order. He listens to their stories, searches for materials that suit the customer, and spends days blending and kneading them. The time, effort, and level of tension during the work are extraordinary, and since the person's own <value> is added to it, the father charges a considerable amount. Occasionally, a student job-hunting might come by, but when they hear the price, they usually click their tongues and leave.

When a violinist visited, the father asked if they were a member of an orchestra or something similar. Although it is the daughter who asks, the father sits at the same table, remaining silent, watching the customer's gestures without really looking. And when he hears they are a member, the father stands up and leaves. It is a signal that he will not make it. According to the daughter, since an orchestra is one entity, if a single violinist has their own color, it will not come together; it means if you are not confident in your own skills, you should practice more. If they are still concerned, they should bring the conductor or the bandmaster.

When he decides to make a <color> after listening to a customer, the daughter is quite busy too. For the first time, the father must procure the materials himself, but when they absolutely cannot be found, the daughter goes to the city library to look them up. From color-related topics to natural science, physics, music, art history, textiles, general life, and even the universe, the daughter checks everything, takes notes, makes copies, and takes photos if possible. The father flips through, reads, glares at, combines, calculates, and thinks about the vast amount of material collected in this way for hours, sometimes days. The daughter cannot approach the father except for meals and tea.

There is a trade called a color seller. With the <colors> the father makes, the city overflows with joy, becomes energetic, vibrant, and rich, and occasionally is gently wrapped in a pious silence. The daughter is proud of such work, and her dream is to one day succeed her father.

＊The title image used here is
guentherligbyPixabayimage from

Even though I am a graphic designer, I was not good at handling color when I was young. Unlike now, I did things almost by intuition, like "if you multiply Y% and M% you get this color..." (of course there were color charts, but imagining a wide space of design from a 1.5cm square color swatch was a difficult task, to say the least. Let alone considering the relationship with other colors, how they look, and even the corporate or product image, it was impossible...). I might be the one who was most happy when I became able to work with a computer.
That said, since I started when no one around me was doing design on a computer yet, no one taught me the difference between the colors on the screen and the colors on paper. It was hard until it became something usable.
Honestly, I am still not good at color even now. Although I don't have any qualifications, I think I might understand it a little better than others.

Is it a poem? A short-short story? The <color> in it is, of course, different from that. But if such a job existed, it would be helpful for budding musicians in particular. Whether relying on it is the best thing to do, well, there are pros and cons to everything, I suppose.

Even so, I do like this length. If it were any longer, I would get bored halfway through.

By the way, some of you might imagine this. After I finished writing it and read it back, I suddenly felt that way myself.

Thank you for reading this time as well.
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