Hum

There is a sound just beneath everything. Not music, not noise—something deeper, something ancient. It lingers in the gaps between thoughts, saturating spaces where stillness once reigned. The hum is not made or forced; it simply *is*, like breath, like hunger, like memory folded into bone. You might mistake it for tinnitus, for electronics, for fiction. But it is real. It’s the unnamable residue left behind when reality exhales.

It starts low—so low you don’t even notice. A distant whisper across inner walls. Then it grows. Or perhaps you do. Perception bends, adjusting like the aperture of an eye waking from a dream. Suddenly, it's not the world that vibrates, *you* do. Your spine recognizes it first, thrumming like a tuning fork struck by forgotten hands. Fingertips tingle. Teeth feel like they’ve tasted electricity. You haven’t moved, but everything inside you is shifting.

It hums in dreams and lingers when you rise. It infiltrates your routines, shadow-walks your sentences. The way you look at strangers, the way water falls from your hands, the way mirrors no longer reflect *just* your image—all stained by that tone. That resonance. An unseen frequency, matching your pulse just a second too late.

The hum does not ask for attention. Yet once heard, it cannot be forgotten. It reminds you of what you were—before language confined your thoughts, before decisions were framed as choices. It is the residual current of every moment you nearly fell apart but didn't. It’s there in the crackling light bulb. The hiss of a closing door. The pressure in your chest when no one’s speaking. This is the language before speech.

And it builds.

With time, it becomes less sensation, more presence. A companion you didn't invite but secretly craved. You begin to greet it, not with words, but with stillness. You don't ask it why. You feel it move when you lie still. It patrols your skull when you try to sleep. It knows you better than your memories do.

The hum is not your enemy. Nor is it your savior. It simply reminds you you’re still vibrating too—and that your collapse, however inevitable, will ring out like a bell in the void. Echoing. Building. Reshaping silence into *knowing*.

You are not alone.

You hum too.