The zine also explained that taking people back to where they were high-functioning was generally a bad idea. Blithe needed a place where he would not have to function. I certainly didn’t want to spend any time among the celebrities, astrologers, and health goths that Sid always texted me about. He’d recently slept with a health goth who shamed him for his choice of nut milk.

“How would you feel about us taking you to New York? I have a cozy apartment; you won’t know anyone.”

“No wallpaper,” he said, softer.

“Okay, then, we’re going to New York. Do you need anything right now?”

“Sushi.”

Thank god he’s a little coherent, I thought. I started to wonder if he was just fucking with us for attention, but the zine said that assuming the worst of people will only draw out the process.

“Okay, bud, we’ll get you some sushi in New York,” Aiden said in a sweet voice.

“Sushi,” Blithe whispered as we closed the door.

“So what are we thinking?” I asked Aiden as we headed to the sea. Rita sent us off with a moldy bird identification guide.

“He’s in pretty bad shape. What do you think about her?” Aiden carried his tripod over one shoulder and brought an extra linen shirt so he could take a scenic photo for the following day.

“IDK, does anyone pick up unstable strays in the middle of the desert without some sort of ulterior motive, or are we too jaded?”

“Good point.”

“I know this seems really fucked, but are you sort of excited by how out of it he is?”

“Yeah, I know I shouldn’t be, but it makes me feel needed. And sane,” Aiden said.

The smell of rotting eggs rolled toward us.

“Why would anyone call this a sea?” he asked when we reach the gravelly shore.

Water stretched out to the horizon, and the shore had gathered fish heads, a rusting metal stool, some boat carcasses.

“It is saline.”

We walked in silence for a while, listening to the birds diving into the water.

“What’s our plan?” I asked.

“Well, we take him to your apartment. Get him on a schedule, see if he wants to video his parents.”

We didn’t have anything to do except text the Rhiz to send Blithe a plane ticket by desert-motorcyclist courier. We sat at the shore. I made circles in the sand with a stick. Aiden waited until the sun started to set, then changed into the linen shirt, which filled with the light breeze. He posed by the water’s edge. Another solitary photo.

“What’s the caption?”

“Something about stillness,” he said quietly.