Catching the Vision - Song Story 5/22

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

The Prompt
This is short, but the idea of someone with dreams just said Napoleon to me, and so a little narrative evolved.

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The young couple looked happy, their faces beaming with expectations of the years to come and the dreams they would share.  This wedding had been a dream come true for the bride, and her handsome new husband made her feel as though the rest of their lives would be one big adventure.

Napoleon Solo had always dreamed of adventure, and standing here next to his Joan, he knew that this was the greatest adventure of all; life with the girl of his dreams.

Their parents had been uneasy about the young couple’s plan to marry now, they were so young.  But Napoleon had ideas about his future, and going forward without Joan by his side just didn’t make sense.  A stint in the army would guarantee money for college when he got out, and in the meantime Joan would get her degree.

They had a plan.

Before Napoleon could launch into his military training the plan came apart at the seams.  A car accident claimed the life of his bride, leaving the young man doubting everything.  The army seemed unimportant now, and college a meaningless sojourn that would never hold the same sense of destiny as it had before...

Joan was dead.  Napoleon’s dreams were dead.

Two months after he buried his wife Napoleon Solo was bound for South Korea and the conflict that had torn North and South apart.  He was still numb, uncaring for the lives he was being sent to save.  What good had it done him to have a dream?  What good would it do anyone now, to wage a war that was destined to lead nowhere as far as he could see?

That’s what Napoleon thought.

In the midst of a deadly conflict with lives at stake on both sides, the young soldier began to care again about the outcome.  Fellow soldiers looked to the handsome young man as men will do when a natural leader is in their midst.  Feeling a weight of responsibility that he recognized as accountability, Napoleon Solo soon found himself promoted and with that, highly regarded by his commanding officers.  This then was a niche into which he could insert himself and thrive.

Life began again.

Korea came and went with spasms of grief and triumph.  When Napoleon was again stateside and ready to enroll in college with a G.I. Bill to back him up, the army veteran found himself among a new kind of academic environment.  Rumblings beneath the serene surface of an Eastern college began to call out to Napoleon; men representing certain types of organizations courted him, regaling him with the opportunity of a lifetime if he would just sign on the dotted line.

Napoleon Solo began to dream again.

The man whose pitch for an altruistic career in international affairs was a veteran of world affairs dating back to World War I; a bushy browed Englishman whose vision of a peaceful planet, devoid of the kinds of treachery and totalitarianism that was always close at hand, appealed to Napoleon as none of the other covert or federal agencies had.

Alexander Waverly had a dream worth one man’s life and pursuits.

Napoleon decided to make Waverly’s dream his own, and his life would never be the same.

Comments

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

You're very kind :D Thank you for such a thoughtful assessment of this very short entry.