Read Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs 1: The Never Hero for Free Online Page A

blame them for it. Overwhelming fear was the worst lens to observe a situation through. It rendered the observer’s memory untrustworthy. He heard the words come out of his own mouth and knew his response would have been the same. Jonathan himself questioned what he remembered, doubted it. He found himself leaving out details as they seemed impossible.
    Until he’d been made to lie still in the machine he hadn’t really been given enough time alone to try and process it for himself, without an audience, to reconstruct events in a manner that made any sense. He struggled to build a timeline in his head. Alcohol, physical and psychological trauma, drugged sedation, all allied against him to create a fog of uncertainty over everything he thought he remembered.
    He had dreamed.
    He was a child, sometime near his ninth birthday. He was riding in the passenger seat of a pickup truck, a blue Ford Ranger that belonged to his father. He’d remembered the smell and feel of the plastic canvas car seat, so distinct, not like leather or upholstery. His father drove, he’d tuned the radio to the same oldies station he always had when Jonathan was young.
    The truck itself betrayed that he was dreaming. It had been totaled in the wreck that took his father’s life. He’d taken this drive with his father as a child.
    The dash was too high and he had to push against his seat belt to try and see the road in front of them. He’d forgotten that about childhood. The repeated struggle to see what was happening right in front of him, whether it was because he was being sheltered from it by his parents, or just because he was too damn short to see over the dash.
    Perspective, literally and figuratively, was gained with age.
    It was early morning, and as they drove he’d asked his father why cats meowed and dogs barked. His father took the question seriously enough, not blowing Jonathan off, not getting impatient at the question of a child that seemed obvious.
    “Everything just does what it can,” Douglas said.
    To Jonathan the statement only begged more questions.
    “Why can’t cats bark?”
    His father smiled, taking his eyes off the road for a moment.
    “Why can’t you talk out of your ears? Things are all born able to do certain things, and the parts they’re born with have limits. Cats aren’t born to bark, dogs aren’t born to purr.”
    That had given Jonathan something to think about for a while and some time passed before he’d spoken again.
    “Can I have a dog, Dad?” Jonathan asked.
    His father had sighed as the real reason for his son’s questions was revealed. He looked out the driver’s side window quietly for a few moments, thinking of how to respond.
    “Son, sometimes wanting something is better than having it,” he said, clearly amused with himself.
    What Douglas found funny at the time had been lost on Jonathan. His eye’s fell to his lap while he pondered, but when he looked back to argue, his attention was drawn away by abrupt changes in his surroundings; changes that didn’t belong in the memory.
    The daylight seemed to fade away quickly, as though the hours were moving forward at an unnatural speed, pushing them into the onset of night. The weather grew turbulent, rain beginning to pound the windshield as they drove. Douglas squinted through the window, turning on the wipers but no longer able to see the road clearly in front of them. The radio cut out, the music replaced with the static of dead air.
    Suddenly his father turned to him, taking his eyes off the road. Douglas’ face had become so serious, as though they were having a conversation about life and death, not cats and dogs. It gave Jonathan a chill to see such a sudden change in the way his father looked at him.
    “It’s got to be close, Jonathan, so close death can’t tell you apart.”
    Unsure what his father was telling him, Jonathan starred back at a loss for what to say. Before he had the chance to ask for an explanation, the speakers