Originally published in Realms of Fantasy, December 2003.

• Honorable mention, The Year's Best Science Fiction: 21st Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois

Donny Chavez lives an unremarkable life in Salt Lake City, where he harbors an unrequited passion for a woman halfway around the world. A chance visit to a peculiar little store sends him off on an epic journey in search of his love—but journeys have a strange tendency of changing travelers in unexpected ways.