It is written as a lyrical, reflective prose poem or a personal essay, playing on the double meaning of “index” (a list/guide, or a pointer/finger). 1. The first letter. You wrote it on a torn page from a notebook meant for physics diagrams. I still have it. The ink has smudged, turning the ‘h’ in hum into a ghost. It was the index finger pointing toward possibility: You. Me. Maybe.
It sits at the very back, like a forgotten appendix. No page number. Because we never turned to that page. But the index lists it anyway, in faint, ghostly type: Love. See: Hum Tum.
A classic entry. Page twenty-three of our internal lexicon. You said rain was a melancholy of the sky; I said it was a celebration of the earth. We didn’t speak for three hours. Then you pulled me outside, and we stood getting soaked until we forgot who was right. The index here is not a word, but a wet sleeve touching a wet sleeve. Index Of Hum Tum
An index is supposed to be orderly. Alphabetical. Clinical. But Hum and Tum — Us and You —refuse to be sorted. They bleed across the columns. They refer the reader to every page, and to no page at all.
You looking away from the lens. Me looking at you looking away. It’s the most honest thing we ever made. The index classifies it under: Truth. It is written as a lyrical, reflective prose
Not the angry kind. The one that falls between two people who have run out of small talk and are terrified of the large talk. This index entry reads: See also: courage.
Hum Tum, passim. Meaning: scattered everywhere. Meaning: if you look closely enough at the margins of any ordinary day, you will find the faint trace of an index finger, pointing from me to you. And back again. End of Index. You wrote it on a torn page from
“I can’t sleep.” “Neither can I.” That’s the whole entry. It appears twice in the index—once under Loneliness , once under Home .
Indexed under Train stations, coffee cups gone cold, and the hinge of a door that will never open the same way again. Also under See you later —because you refused to say goodbye.