Creative Writing Prompt #1

There is a short, black curtain rod mounted on the wall in our office that separates the office from our bedroom. It's not actually a curtain rod, but it looks like one. People (for example, my wife and her mother) tell me you can hang tapestry there. I still don't know what the actual term for it is, and that leads me to the subject about which I thought most while I thought about this object: how I think.

As much as I tried to focus on the details of the rod (let's just call it that for now), I couldn't help but think about why I was thinking the things I was thinking. For example: Why did I keep thinking that the most suitable way to describe the ends of the rod was "black wrought-iron balls of yarn?" Why couldn't I fight the urge to think about how badly I wanted to know what wrought iron actually is? And how I could know to say something is made of wrought iron if I didn't know what it is? And don't even know what the something is that is made of the material that I don't know? Why did my mind keep moving past things like tapestries and quilts to focus on the first thing I thought could be hung from this rod: an ancient, possibly tattered, map (too many video games, anyone)? Why were all of these questions more important to me than the physical details of the rod itself?

These are the things I think when I think of objects.

The rod is really quite handsome, though. Black as coal (or wrought iron? does wrought iron have a singular color?) (and why coal? why always coal?), it rests on two mounted under-hooks (under-hooks? really? that's all you could come up with?) screwed into the wall with, I believe--it's been awhile since I've looked now--white screws. And, as I mentioned, the ends of the rod are twisted metal that resemble balls of yarns (forgot to say wrought iron). And in the middle, in the bulk of the object, the part that really makes it what it is (whatever that is), is a space for your finest, ancient map of the feudal colonies of lower Western Europe (or maybe a quilt).

Folks, may I introduce you to my inner critic? He loves the parenthetical, and I've decided he would be a welcome companion to the writing exercise I'm launching tonight (what a nice guy). To shun him would be to deprive myself of the full writing experience, I think, and besides--he loves wrought iron.