Index — Of Hum Tum

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 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. 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

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. The index classifies it under: Truth