I Missed You

White Pigeon, Michigan is a quiet town. With a population just over 1,500, its main drag, Kalamazoo Street, is named after the minor regional city an hour dead north known for producing celery—widely considered the blandest vegetable.

Officer Kennedy doesn’t know anything about this. Well, the celery stuff at least, having never tried it, not even with peanut butter and raisins as a kid. Born in White Pigeon 43 years ago, Kennedy is aware of the town’s geography relative to Kalamazoo, hanging off it like a tail pinned to a donkey.

It used to be a big weekend when Kennedy brought in someone for DUI. Since the world has gone into indefinite lockdown, though, he’s been desperately seeking novel forms of self-occupation.

At first, it seemed a change of pace might not be so bad. “Just another excuse to stop for a cup of Joe,” Kennedy joked with the few other cops and administrative workers employed by the small village. That was before stores and restaurants shuttered for good—before the announcement: White Pigeon police officers would be riding solo until further notice to help combat the pandemic.

Officer Kennedy’s partner is much more than just that to him. They’ve been inseparable since third grade, when Officer (then Danny) O’Sullivan somehow managed to sneak a Whoopee Cushion under Mrs. Larkin’s derriere. It was all similar antics from then on, until the announcement.

All global efforts to curb the virus have failed, leading to increasingly deadlier mutations and mass graves. Little White Pigeon alone has said goodbye to over 200 poor souls over the past eight months of second- and third-wave infection, despite wearing a blanket of fear and quarantine. During that span, Officer Kennedy hasn’t had one in-person conversation.

Kennedy grew up with six older siblings and a little sister. Chatter doesn’t just make him comfortable; it’s integral to his mental stability—his entire way of being. Single for the past 15 years after losing his young wife to a rare form of colon cancer, work and friends have kept Kennedy going and sane. Softball, barbeques, friendly faces.

It started with the voices. Melissa’s. His wife. His love. Now, driving around in his cruiser alone all day, it’s all he hears and he’s talking back. The audibility itself isn’t so much the issue. It’s not even the fact Kennedy can no longer distinguish reality from hallucination—a controllable mania when granted proper care. The crux, which no one’s angled to identify correctly due to distancing, comes down to Kennedy enforcing laws when he nor anyone else has the slightest idea he’s lost it.

Driving through town well under the speed limit, all alone on Kalamazoo, Kennedy glimpses something out of the corner of his eye. What he initially dismisses as a distinguished floater starts to coagulate, establish form. He slows down, stops, right where there would normally be at least a trickle of traffic at 2 p.m. on a Saturday, but is, at this moment, post-apocalyptic.

A red kite.

Kennedy’s stunned. Who in their right mind is outside? He’s feeling a combination of anger, disbelief, and anticipation at the chance of talking to someone. Kennedy flips on the siren, peels out. Two minutes later, he’s at an empty park.

The kite’s flying out in an open field, but no one’s there holding its string. Confused—but actually more like subconsciously strung-out and paranoid—Kennedy exits the cruiser with his weapon drawn. He scurries over to the kite, which has been tethered to a rock. Looking up, Kennedy notices something written on the kite with what appears to be spray paint. He starts retrieving it, at first slowly; he crescendos to a frantic pace.

Finally getting the kite down, Kennedy holds it with both hands in front of him and reads the white, dripping words: I missed you. Everything goes dark. Kennedy flails, thinking someone covered his head with a bag. Bang. Shooting pain through the skull. Scared, he doesn’t know what’s happened. Falling—awareness lost.

Forty minutes have passed when O’Sullivan sees his partner’s cruiser pulled over in front of St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery. He veers onto the grassy shoulder. The car’s barely in park and O’Sullivan is already running. Everything moves at the speed of a nightmare, crawling through tar.

He discovers Kennedy right where he expected—at Melissa’s headstone. As O’Sullivan approaches the lifeless mass that was once his best friend, he finds himself wondering when he’ll join them