Today I want to give you something: a bit of writing that took over my brain as I was trying to work on an actual writing project. But, if you’re an artist, you know that those brain worms can’t be denied, and so here it is, a bit of whimsy and something unfinished but still wholly perfect to put out into the world. Finish it, if you want.

The Color Thief

Somewhere in the seaside village, where cobbled streets curved like lazy brushstrokes and gas lamps flickered like candles, lived a peculiar man named Maurice Vance. To most, he was just another shadow among the evening throngs, a man with ink-smudged fingers and a habit of staring too long at paintings in galleries. But Maurice had a secret—he was a thief. Not of gold, nor jewels, nor any of the usual treasures men might covet.

Maurice stole color.

It had been with him since childhood, this strange talent—though it had only revealed its full power in adulthood. With a mere brush of his fingertips against the surface of an oil painting, he could siphon away a color—an exact shade, an irreplaceable hue—leaving behind a pale, lifeless ghost of what had once been. He worked quietly, never greedy, always careful, taking just enough to go unnoticed.

Because he needed it.

Deep in his attic studio, Maurice worked on a canvas unlike any other. It pulsed faintly when he touched it, as though something within stirred, waiting. A door half-ajar to a world not yet finished. He needed colors no palette could provide—true sky blue, Monet’s lily-pad green, the deep crimson of a forgotten master’s sunset. These were the colors that had been lost to time, forgotten or stolen away by the ages. He had spent years collecting them, not for the sake of wealth or fame, but for something far more personal—a painting that might bring back what was gone from the world.

One evening, Maurice found himself in front of a small, dusty gallery tucked between a bookshop and a perfumery. Inside, the faint glow of the gas lamps revealed a single painting—an unassuming landscape, a violet field under a honey-hued sky. But the colors… the colors were perfect. They were exactly what he needed.

The gallery was quiet. The curator, half-asleep behind the desk, barely noticed Maurice as he stepped closer to the painting. His fingers hovered just over the canvas, feeling the hum of the color beneath the paint, as though it were alive. He reached out, and just as the tips of his fingers brushed the sky—

“Stealing, are we?”

The voice startled Maurice, and he froze. Turning, he saw a woman standing in the doorway. She was dressed in paint-streaked overalls, her dark curls piled atop her head like a nest of restless thoughts. Her smile was knowing, but not unkind.

“I—ah—” he stammered, caught off guard.

She tilted her head, studying him as though he were another piece of art to be examined. “You’re not taking the painting, are you?”

“No,” Maurice admitted, his voice low.

“But you are taking something.”

Maurice hesitated. There was something in her eyes—an understanding, as though she knew exactly what he was doing, though she couldn’t possibly know the full extent.

“Color,” he said finally, his voice almost a whisper.

Her brow lifted in curiosity. “Oh? And what do you do with it?”

Maurice looked at the painting again. The colors shimmered, as though they were too bright to belong in the gallery. He thought about the canvas in his attic—unfinished, waiting for the final touches that only those stolen hues could provide.

“I’m painting something,” he said, his voice barely above a murmur. “Something that… requires colors that don’t exist in the ordinary world. Colors that have been lost. Forgotten. I’m trying to bring them back.”

Persephone studied him for a long moment, her expression shifting. Then, surprisingly, she smiled.

“Well then,” she said, stepping toward him, “I suppose you should come with me.”