Short Story Analysis

Hey everyone! I took an idea I came up with last year and made a large story out of it and am looking for feedback. The story is long but I added it below in case someone is interested. Let me know what you like about it and what you don’t like, and any ideas for improving it. <br><br># <br><br>The Moment Construction Ceased<br><br>Once, there was a wise, old man named Lucius. Lucius did not have any love for people, but he did have a love for books. He believed that everyone who had ever lived possessed knowledge that could be of use to him, and that he could gain access to that knowledge by reading what they wrote. He traveled far and wide to find the things he was looking for. He had read all of the books of the ancient Greeks, every word written by Shakespeare, and every page ever written by Marx. He lapped up everything he could find, although with each page he devoured, he noticed that there was less truth and more nonsense.<br><br>“Every generation thinks it’s wiser than the last, but none of them are,” said Lucius.<br><br>Lucius lived in a world where everything was backwards. In a time when the world needed new homes, it was tearing them down. In a time when the world needed more food, it was destroying arable land. In a time when the world needed more water, it was allowing the oceans to die. <br><br>By this time, Lucius had read enough books to know exactly what was going wrong. He decided at his age though, that he was too old to try and change people's minds, but he had an idea. Deep in the forest, he found a clearing. In it he built a cabin, and next to it he built another. Continuing in this way, he surrounded himself with what he estimated to be a mile of small cabins. <br><br>He did this for the rest of his life. He died soon after completing his work, having spent all of the time he had on the cabins. He left a small note asking for no funeral, but that his body be placed in the center and left there. He wrote, “If you want to fix the earth, stop building.” <br><br>He died, and was buried as he had requested. Over his grave, he placed a wooden sign that read “Sustainable Living.” But, one day a man named Jean was walking through the forest when he stumbled across the clearing where Lucius had lain his body to rest. Jean was immediately in awe of all of the work that had clearly gone into creating these cabins. He thought it was the perfect place to begin a new life. The same day, he began tearing down the wooden sign and repurposing the wood for his new life. <br><br>After some time, Jean had disassembled every cabin. He switched the wood for nails and used it to build a castle. He had created something that would last him forever, and he was content with his new life. But he remembered the sign, and he wondered what “Sustainable Living” was. He thought the answer must be important if Lucius had left it there, so he went to find out. <br><br>He went back to his home and from inside the door, he saw a man walking through the forest. Jean watched as the man found the clearing and saw that there was nothing there and that Lucius had died. It had been 30 years since Jean was in the woods. He had let Lucius down. He realized how grave the mistake he had made was. He went back to the cabin, built a fire and sat by it. He sat there for 12 hours staring at the flames, intentionally burning his body in the process. He sat there in silence, lost in thought. <br><br>But, in those 12 hours, he thought about what he had done wrong, and he knew that he had to make it right. He grabbed his cane and put it in the flames. He held it there for a few seconds, examining the shape it had taken. “This is what I need,” he said. “Now I must find a way to use it.”<br><br>In the 30 years that Jean had been alive, he had grown old enough to understand that the world was backwards. He knew that he had made it worse by destroying the man who had written the guide that was supposed to save it. He knew that he couldn’t let things continue to go downhill. After, a few experiments with different metals, he finally found a way to create a durable cane out of what he called “burnt metal.” <br><br>With the cane, he traveled to different parts of the world; to cities, to rural areas, to oceans and forests. He used his cane to find the people who were doing the most damage. And with it, he left them with a permanent reminder of what they had done wrong. He used it to burn the factories, to melt the ships, to level the cities- to do whatever he could to reverse the damage. <br><br>He became the first person to have a cane that could burn cities with a single touch, the first to melt ships with a second, and the first to level cities with a third. And he was proud of what he had done. But, he also felt guilty. He knew that if people could destroy, that was because there was still work to be done. He was impressed that the world had lasted this long without him. <br><br>He was only one man, and he knew that he had not accomplished much. But he also knew that he must be proud of himself. He had done the best he could based on the circumstances. He thought about how much he had grown and changed in those 30 years. And, he finally left the cabin behind. <br><br>While he continued to wander the world, he noticed how different it was. And he realized that even though he had not changed the world, he had accomplished something. Construction had ceased.