⚖Fake Philosophy

 

Introduction

Some stories stay with us because of their shadows. Fake Philosophy is one of those stories. 

Taken from my short story collection It Ended By Beginning, this piece explores what it means to love someone so deeply that even time itself feels cruel for daring to take it away. 

To frame it, I chose a line from Sir Richard Francis Burton that captures its spirit perfectly:

“Indeed he knows not how to know who knows not also how to un-know.”

I’m sharing it here as a gift and an invitation into the worlds I've created in my collection It Ended By Beginning.

“Indeed he knows not how to know who knows not also how to un-know.” - Sir Richard Francis Burton

Story 12

There were two versions of Robert Hillman.

The one who walked through the high school halls like he was untouchable-grinning with his chin tilted slightly upward, a lopsided backpack slung over one shoulder, voice always too loud, arms always swinging like he owned air itself.

And the one whose mother still picked up after him at sixteen.

In school, Robert was the kind of boy whose name you whispered with a smirk, the type that sparked stories and rumors-half lies, half truths. He once set a teacher’s chair on fire and got suspended for three days. Another time, he climbed onto the gym roof during lunch and refused to come down until someone handed him a pizza. He always said the world was boring unless you found ways to wake it up.

His friends Jamie, Khalil, Marcus, Dev loved him for it. Or maybe they loved the way they felt standing next to him. Brave by association. Cool by default.

He was the ringleader of every stupid idea, every late-night sneak-out, every gasoline-and-fire thought no one else dared to say out loud. And yet, Robert never once considered himself reckless.

“I’m a philosopher,” he used to say. “People are just scared of people like me.”

But that was the thing about Robert. He mistook being fearless for being wise. He thought chaos meant depth. That stupidity meant freedom. And no one told him otherwise.

Not until the bridge.

It was a foggy Sunday evening, the kind where the sky didn’t know if it wanted to rain again or just hang heavy and grey. The five of them-Robert and his crew drove out to Bellmere Bridge in Jamie’s rusted Civic, their sneakers still wet from puddles and the back seat thick with the smell of half-crushed fast food.

“Let’s do something,” Robert said, legs stretched over the console, chewing on an ice cube. “I’m bored out of my mind.”

“Dude, it’s pouring,” said Dev from the back seat.

Robert looked out the foggy window. “Nah. It’s perfect.”

That’s how it always started.

Fifteen minutes later, they were standing in the middle of the bridge with the wind biting at their jackets, the river below swollen from the rain, brown and deceptively alive. The metal rails were slick. You could hear the occasional splash of branches floating downstream, bumping into rocks just out of view.

“Who’s brave enough to hang off the side?” Robert asked with a grin. “Ten seconds. That’s all. You can use the support beams.”

“You’re insane,” said Marcus, but he was already walking over.

One by one, they followed.

Five teenage boys, dangling off a metal bridge like bats-laughing too loud, testing gravity. They counted seconds. Dev lasted nine. Jamie made it to eleven and cursed like he’d won gold.

Then Robert, still on solid ground, said, “Let’s take it up a notch.”

They froze.

“What?” Khalil asked.

“Jump in.”

The words hung in the air heavier than the clouds.

No one laughed.

“C’mon,” Robert said. “The river’s right there. You jump, climb up, you win. Legend status forever.”

“Bro, it rained all night,” Jamie said. “That water’s probably full of crap. Look at how fast it’s moving.”

“Cowards,” Robert muttered.

Nobody responded.

“Then I’ll do it,” Robert snapped, stepping closer to the edge. “Since I’m the only one with balls.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Marcus warned, climbing back over the railing.

Khalil followed, rubbing his cold hands together. “Dude, this isn’t funny.”

“You said it yourself, it’s not that far,” Robert said, peering over. The water below looked deep enough-dark, moving, a little foamy at the edges. But looks meant nothing on days like this. Not with mud. Not with rain. Not with the rocks that lurked just beneath surface lies.

“Robert-”

“Watch this,” he said.

Then he jumped.

There are sounds your body doesn’t forget.

The sharp crack that echoed beneath Bellmere Bridge wasn’t the splash they expected. It wasn’t a body breaking surface tension and disappearing into cold river. It was dull. Final. A snap muffled by flesh.

Like a sack of wet concrete slamming bone-first into something too solid to forgive.

For half a second, no one moved. Not even the trees. Not even the air.

Then Jamie screamed.

Marcus dropped to his knees at the edge, eyes wild, scanning the water.

But Robert wasn’t in the water.

He was just beside it, limbs splayed awkwardly on a stretch of jagged rock that sat right beneath the surface-just low enough to be invisible from the bridge, just high enough to break a body.

Blood ran in ribbons between the stones.

Khalil bolted for the car. Dev followed, sobbing, calling someone-911 maybe, or his mom, no one could tell. Marcus stood frozen, as if moving might undo what he saw. As if silence might change the sound he heard.

Jamie climbed down the steep incline, slipping on mud and dead leaves, screaming Robert’s name like it mattered, like it could still reach him.

But Robert didn’t move. His eyes stared straight into the sky.

Empty. Still. Quiet.

The police ruled it accidental. No one was arrested. The boys weren’t drunk. There was no malicious intent. Just a teenage boy with no fear, who mistook invincibility for immortality.

Robert's mother sobbed through the memorial, clutching an old baseball glove in her lap. His father didn’t say a word.

At school, they hung a banner in the hallway: Rest In Peace, Robert Hillman. Gone Too Soon.
They wrote tributes in Sharpie, posted grainy photos, shared inside jokes on Instagram stories like scripture. But his friends didn’t go online much after that.

Marcus couldn’t sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the moment Robert’s sneakers left the bridge.

Jamie dropped out of football and started skipping school. Dev stopped speaking for a while. He barely left his room.

Khalil got into therapy-his mom forced him-and started showing up to class again, quiet, changed, older somehow. The group never hung out again. Not all five.

How could they?

Robert had always wanted to be a name that lingered.

And in some way, he got his wish.

He became a cautionary tale. A whisper in the hallway. A "remember when."

Freshmen pointed at the bridge and said, “That’s where it happened.”

Sophomores dared each other to stand on the edge.

But nobody jumped. And nobody laughed.

The school kept the memorial banner up until graduation that year. Then it came down. Folded. Filed away. Forgotten by most.

Not by the four boys who were there.

It took years before Jamie could speak about Robert without flinching. Marcus went to college out of state and changed his number. Khalil became a nurse, quietly saving lives after watching one slip away. Dev dropped out, disappeared into some other city, some other version of himself. Each of them carried pieces of that night like broken glass in their pockets, shards they couldn’t discard.

Robert had always insisted that rules were for people who didn’t think deeply enough. That fear was a social construct. That danger was only real if you believed in it. He called himself a philosopher.

But philosophers think. Robert didn’t think.

He reacted. He performed. And he died doing it.

There’s a difference between knowing something and understanding it. A greater difference between understanding and un-knowing…The act of tearing away ego to see the truth beneath it.

Robert never got the chance.

But his friends did.

Because nothing unmasks truth faster than silence. Then a thud where water should’ve been.

Ending

Fake Philosophy is only one of thirty-two stories in It Ended By Beginning, a collection built around the idea that pain ignored is pain passed on. Each story stands alone, but together they create a portrait of love, loss, grief, betrayal, and survival.

If this story resonates with you, I invite you to step into the rest of the collection. There, you’ll find stories that challenge, comfort, and linger long after you’ve finished reading.

📖 Read the full collection here

Because sometimes the only way to remember and to heal, is to tell the story.

- Makitia Thompson

#MindsInDesign #TheMidUniverse #Makitia #MakitiaThompson #ItEndedByBeginning #MidStories #WhereTimeCantExist #UntilTimeRemembers #TheDayThatBrokeTime #AllTheWaysWeRuinedUs