Paul Enns Wiebe
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Contest: First Lines

8/20/2020

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I’m sponsoring a contest to match the first line of each of my eight novels with its title. The first three contestants correctly to match the first lines with the novels in which they appear will receive both hearty congratulations on Facebook and a signed copy of  my initial novel, Crazy Were We in the Head. 
 
To enter, simply match the first lines with their novels and enter at paulennswiebe.com/contact. Guessing is encouraged and in many cases necessary.
 
  
First Lines:
 
At the Vatican, the pope was sound asleep, having four hours earlier mumbled the simple benediction he had learned as a child.
 
At three o’clock, Calvin Burr had had enough.
 
He stood before the door of the principal’s office, hesitant.
 
I couldn’t see the priest’s face, but I could smell the alcohol.
 
Mother’s plan for Jean-Pierre’s life had not gone well.
 
One morning not long ago, I awoke with a start from the dead of a dreamless sleep to find that I had no memory.
 
That a dropout from a rabbinical school in upstate New York, an ordinary young man with the ordinary young ambition of moving to Hollywood and becoming a film star, should be chosen to discover and translate the now-famous Bear Lake Scrolls and then establish what quickly has become the fastest-growing religion in America, seems incredible.
 
The advantage of living in Inverness back in the forties and fifties was the number of churches you could choose from, nine, which averaged out to a hundred souls per religion.
  
 
Novels:
 
Alone in a Dark Wood 
 
The Church of the Comic Spirit
 
Crazy Were We in the Head
 
Dancing Over the Rays of Light
 
Hotel Adios (in progress)
 
Just Another Dead White Male
 
Pope Dun the Incredible 
 
Sacred Books & Sky Hooks 

 
 

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more from Pope Dun the Incredible!

8/7/2020

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“Sit down,” said Dennis Bright as large, unkempt Benny Good sauntered into his office.

Benny squeezed himself into the chair across the desk from his smallish, kempt boss, who was dressed in a new Sears suit, a new Sears shirt, and a new Sears tie, a uniform designed to highlight a generic male managerial face still on the pleasant side of forty. 

​Bright strummed his fingers on the desk. He adjusted his glasses. He cleared his throat. He inserted an index finger under the collar of his new Sears shirt and straightened his new Sears tie. He took a deep breath. He exhaled, slowly but audibly. 

“Benny,” he began. “ This is not working out.”

“It’s only been a month,” said Benny. 

Bright wagged his head sadly. “The numbers just aren’t there.” 

“One. Incredible. Month,” said Benny. 

Bright sighed. “Benny’s Begonias is not the blockbuster we’d projected.”

“One month of lively discussion of the delights of indoor gardening!” said Benny, growing eloquent. 

Dennis Bright frowned as he tilted back in his chair and placed five pairs of interlocking digits behind his head. “Listen, Benny,” he said to the older man, “I hate to tell you this, but.”     

Benny carefully placed a foot on Bright’s desktop. That foot was fitted with a sandal. Between the sandal and a pair of wrinkled shorts stretched an expanse of hairy, well-fed leg. Between the shorts and a soiled T-shirt stretched an expanse of equally hairy, equally well-fed abdomen. The T-shirt bore the insignia of KKKS (“First in Alternative Programming for the Kirkland Listening Area”) and a pocketful of cigars (Swisher Sweets). From this T-shirt rose a head that had broad features, rugged handsomeness, reddish wavy hair, and a light crimson face. “I had five call-ins today,” said Benny in an attempt to shift the conversation in a more promising direction.“

​Two were from your regular listener,” Bright pointed out. “She’s very knowledgeable about plants,” countered Benny.

“Why shouldn’t she be? She runs a nursery.”

“Actually, she’s retired from the business. The stress got to her. Probably from watching the plants grow.”

​Dennis Bright smiled in spite of himself. But then he remembered his responsibilities as the KKKS program director and recovered his dignity. “One was from Shannon,” he pointed out.

​“She asks very intelligent questions.”

“That’s because you tell her what to ask.”

“It’s not just what she asks, it’s how she asks it. Her phrasing is impeccable.”

“Her phrasing may be great, or whatever, but the woman doesn’t know a tulip from a cactus. I oughtta know. Ten years I’ve lived with her.” 

“Aha!” said Benny as he placed a second foot on the desk. “So that’s where she picked up her impeccable phrasing.” 

Bright ignored this remark, but not the foot, which was dangerously near his coffee cup. He stared at the encroaching sandal. “One was a wrong number,” he pointed out with a warning frown.

Benny carefully relocated his sandal to a site several millimeters away from the cup. “Did you notice how curious she became about begonias? I think we can expect to hear a lot more from that young woman.” 

“One was from an Alzheimer,” Bright pointed out. He could be hardnosed. That was part of his job. He liked his job. It allowed him to show the ruthless side of his personality. It also paid reasonably well. It kept the wolf from the door, his wife Shannon in the less expensive varieties of French wine, and the Sears men’s wear department in business. 
“
Did I or did I not have fun with her?” wondered Benny. 

​“You had fun with her,” admitted Bright. “But,” he added, “you gotta wonder how well it went over with your regular listener. I don’t think we can expect to hear a lot more from that old lady.” 

“She must like my act or she wouldn’t keep calling.” 
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Pope Dun the Incredible! (continued)

8/6/2020

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And in the Kansas metropolis of Kirkland, not its real name, two men were preparing for a meeting that would launch a chain of events that was destined to have profound consequences both for America and for the largest and most powerful ecclesiastical organization in all Christendom. Unaware as yet of his significance in the grand scheme of things, the older of the two ambled down a nondescript hall towards an unexceptional office at the rear of an unimposing tan cinder block building standing at the foot of an ordinary radio transmitter at the outskirts of this typical Middle-American city. 
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Pope Dun the Incredible! #1

8/5/2020

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Ch. 1: Enter Benny, Stage Left

​At the Vatican, the pope was sound asleep, having four hours earlier mumbled the simple benediction he had learned as a child. In New York City, the anchors at the major networks were preparing to sign off after reading the news of the most ingenious and entertaining samples of human depravity that had appeared in the last twenty-four hours. In Las Vegas, thousands of American parents were busy initiating their offspring into the deepest mysteries of the nation’s folklore. At a race track in Southern California, eight sleek thoroughbreds were pounding the turf and coming down the home stretch as the spectators either clutched their tickets in anxiously sweating hands or, resigned to their temporary fate, began to destroy those tokens of hope. 
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    Paul Enns Wiebe perpetually asks himself, "What do I want to write when I grow up?"

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