Odradek

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"At first glance it looks like a flat star-shaped spool for thread, and indeed it does seem to have thread wound upon it; to be sure, they are only old, broken-off bits of thread, knotted and tangled together, of the most varied sorts and colors. But it is not only a spool, for a small wooden crossbar sticks out of the middle of the star, and another small rod is joined to that at a right angle, another rod -a leg on which, together with a star point, it stands upright. If you address it on the stairs where often it lurks, it will tell its name, the tattered threads trembling, and then laugh like dry leaves rustling."
-Franz Kafka, The Cares of a Family Man