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Back The Art of Breathing Save as PDF
Contents ( 42)
  1. The Art of Breathing
  2. Part One: How We Became Who We Are
  3. Prologue: Or, Where the Kid Hears the Word of the Day
  4. 1. Where Tyson Learns to Breathe
  5. 2. Where Tyson Makes a Phone Call
  6. 3. Where Tyson Graduates and Bear Freaks Out
  7. 4. Where Tyson Says Good-Bye
  8. 5. Where Tyson Gets the Mail
  9. Part Two: Coming Home
  10. 6. Where Tyson Comes Home
  11. 7. Where Tyson Gives a History Lesson
  12. 8. Where Tyson Attends the Most Awkward Party Ever
  13. 9. Where Tyson Plans Attends a Protest
  14. 10. Where Tyson Gets Arrested
  15. 11. Where Tyson Gets His Ass Handed to Him
  16. 12. Where Tyson Writes Bad Poetry and Gawks at Frat Boys
  17. 13. Where Tyson Decides to Man the Fuck Up
  18. 14. Where Tyson Asks Some Questions
  19. 15. Where Tyson Remembers Theresa Jean Paquinn
  20. 16. Where Tyson Learns the Benefit of Therapy
  21. 17. Where Tyson Meets the Man Who Becomes Helena Handbasket
  22. 18. Where Tyson Gets Screwed at His Own Birthday Party (And Not in a Good Way)
  23. Part Three: Just Breathe
  24. 19. Where Tyson Goes to Helena Handbasket’s Sex Dungeon
  25. 20. Where Tyson Beholds the Awesome Wonder That Is Paul Auster
  26. 21. Where Tyson Receives Advice from the Six Sages
  27. 22. Where Tyson Makes a Phone Call
  28. 23. Where Tyson Hears the Inevitable
  29. 24. Where Tyson Meets His Match
  30. 25. Where Tyson Says Hello, Where Tyson Says Good-bye
  31. 26. Where Tyson Touches upon the Inevitable
  32. 27. Where Tyson Faces the Music
  33. 28. Where Tyson Breathes
  34. 29. Tyson And Dominic
  35. 30. The Art Of Breathing
  36. Epilogue: Or, Bear’s Perspective, As It Were (Yeah, He’s Gonna Freak)
  37. Author’s Note
  38. Excerpt
  39. Prologue: Or, Where Bear Answers the Door
  40. More from TJ Klune
  41. Readers love the Bear, Otter, and the Kid Chronicles by TJ Klune
  42. By TJ Klune

And it is!

At first.

But it devolves, very, very quickly.

Later, I’ll see myself on the ten o’clock news and think, Never trust beach hippies ever again for the rest of your life. For anything. Beach hippies ruin everything. Goddamn beach hippies! But this will be thought in a daze, as it will end in such a way that all else will be driven from my mind.

Yeah. This is about to get ugly. Sorry.

“This is Katie Rhine, reporting from the new restaurant BJ’s that recently opened in Seafare. Standing with me is a young man who is part of the group protesting the opening of the restaurant, claiming the chain has slid by USDA practices in the food that they prepare. His name is Tyson Thompson, a nineteen-year-old attendee of Dartmouth College, who is originally from Seafare. Tyson, thank you for being with me today.”

“Thank you for having me,” I say with a smile, realizing I’ve lowered my voice until it sounds like I smoke at least nine packs of cigarettes a day. I don’t know why I’m doing it, but I can’t stop it. “It’s a pleasure to be here.” For fuck’s sake, stop talking like the Marlboro Man with emphysema!

In the background, the hippies and Kori are walking in a circle. The hippies are chanting “HEY, HEY, HEY, BJ’S! HOW MANY ANIMAL FRIENDS HAVE YOU KILLED TODAY?” I don’t think a single one of them was alive when Vietnam occurred, and I told them not to use it. Obviously, they ignored me. Kori is blowing big pink bubbles with her gum and looking coolly amused. She waves at me with an overexaggerated waggle of her fingers, and all I can think about is how I shouldn’t be nervous about this. I’ve been interviewed before. I’ve spoken in front of people before. I can do this. I’m not worried.

“Tyson, can you please tell us why you’re out here today?”

I smile again at Katie Rhine, so wide my cheeks hurt, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to translate onto the screen as me looking like some kind of serial murderer and Katie is my next victim. Add in the fact that Ms. Rhine does not seem to know what moderation is in the use of her perfume (it smells like I’m getting punched in the face by a floral shop), and that I have for some reason started sweating in my armpits and the back of my legs (it could be that it’s warm outside, or it could be the fact that I just realized I am on local TV and literally dozens of people could be watching me right now), and all I can think about is that random deodorant commercial where the woman grabs her boss’s ass by accident, thinking it’s her boyfriend. When the boss turns around, a look of horror dawns on the woman’s face and the announcer asks if you’ve ever had stress sweat, and it tickles me in a way that I can’t quite explain and so I’m trying to hold the laughter back, trying to keep from snorting, because if I do, then I’m going to have to snort Katie Rhine’s Eau de Parfum de Floral Rape, and it’s going to mix with my stress sweat, and I’ll never get the smell off me and at least twenty seconds have gone by on live TV and I still haven’t answered her question, and holy horror of all horrors, I am thinking just like my brother—