The Beginning of the End

Paul was a very happy man.

His adopted parents had finally passed away, and his locked bank account full of cash from donations was finally in his grasp. And here he was! Paying the guard at the ticket booth to the cruise ship the fee, getting ready to spend the next three weeks of his life happily drowsing on the edge of the in-ground pool at the upper deck of the ship and drinking tequilas.

It was his first vacation since the time his biological parents took him to Disney Land as a baby.

Paul walked up the ramp and onto the deck, basking in the gentle breeze of the ocean and the salty tang that came with it. He took a deep breath, and braced himself for complete relaxation.

“Paul! Paul, is that really you?” gasped someone from the huge crowd in front of him. The very same man jogged up to Paul and stared.

“Raoul? Raoul! Long time no see, huh? What is a fine young man like you doing on a pleasure cruise?” asked Paul quizzically.

“Taking a break from life, just like everyone else here, bro!” Raoul was a stout and dark-skinned man from Costa Rica. He knew Paul since Paul moved into the orphanage in Guatemala, and was Paul’s best friend since they first met.

“Well, I am glad that you could make it, Raoul, it’s just that I’ve been very busy lately,” Paul said. He worked at a run-down refinery near Guatemala’s coast and was paid only minimum wage, so such an opportunity such as this was considered a great luxury. “The damn refinery has lost another one of its main furnaces and the blasted fools can’t decide whether to throw it out, buy a new one, or fix it. So, of course, they send me in to take a wild swing at it and see if I can get it up and running. It’s kept me up every night and I can’t finish my homework at all!” Paul also took night classes so he could prepare to become the C.E.O. of the refinery’s company.

“Really?” asked Raoul disbelievingly, “I thought it was just another one of those morons trying to be funny and managed to screw up the whole furnace instead of making it spit green fumes.”