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.
“I can’t sleep.” “Neither can I.” That’s the whole entry. It appears twice in the index—once under Loneliness , once under Home . Index Of Hum Tum
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. An index is supposed to be orderly
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. But Hum and Tum — Us and You —refuse to be sorted
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.