Byron W. Sewell

In the Boojum Forest: a Portmanteau Inspired by Lewis Carroll's the Hunting of the Snark Byron W. Sewell

In this snark-skin portmanteau are four stories about various species of Boojum that have haunted Byron Sewell's obsessively snarkian imagination. In the first novella, "Atchafalya Boojum", four teenagers and two alligator hunters encounter a terrifying Boojum deep in the Atchafalaya Swamp near Morgan City, Louisiana. In the short story "Blue Boojum" we enter the aftermath of a dirty bomb that diverted the channel of the Mississippi River, a terrorist act that ultimately triggers a worldwide apocalypse. "In the Boojum Forest" we follow an American desert plant collector on a quest for rare dwarf Boojum Trees, whose seeds are powerfully hallucinogenic. In the Sonora Desert in northern Mexico he hires a shape-shifting Yaqui brujo guide who knows the location of the trees. They manage to collect a handful of seeds, but encounter three very real Boojums that enter the natural world from a spirit world controlled by an equally powerful bruja who is determined to protect the trees for herself and kill the brujo and Boojum Tree collector. For dessert in the desert we find a sweeter snarky tale about a young man in the deep South who hears Boris Karloff's iconic recording of The Hunting of the Snark on NPR. Later that evening he comically retells the famous poem to his girlfriend while they flirt with each other on her porch swing, enjoying an RC Cola and dreaming of Moon Pies.