Nothing but lush green filled the vision of Roman Santos, who spun to admire the spectacle. Under the shiny leaves, the umber-colored branches of the tree were well-hidden. It was like a sea of emeralds surrounding him, dancing in the air to the tone of the gentle wind which gave them a rhythm. Except that wind was from his own professor's fan. Roman crawled on all fours with his back only an inch from the jagged pine wood. Ever since he drank Dr. Miro's elixir, his entire body had shrunken down to the size of an ant; each leaf had become as big as his entire body. Dr. Miro's words from just an hour earlier still echoed in his head: “It's a true test. Drink this elixir, and you'll shrink so much that my bonsai tree will appear as a giant force of nature.” “So you're promising me that if I find every piece of gold slathered on its leaves, I'll win a million dollars?!” Roman asked as he hunched over his chair next to Dr. Miro's desk. “Yes,” the professor answered. “Remember, Roman. This bonsai tree is special. It's the rarest species in the world - one which can grow gold on its leaves. All you need to do is shrink down, collect the gold, and trade it in for cash.” As his recollection faded, Roman peered down the tree trunk, landing his eyes at the dirt which hosted the roots. Time to start hunting for that gold… he thought. With his sights on the first leaf in front, it didn't take long for him to locate his first piece of treasure. The glossy yellow made it easy to detect, and it appeared more splashed than slathered. Roman worked away at pulling the gold off of the leaf's surface - his fingers clawed at the edges while he heaved at his prize. By the time it finally unstuck itself from the leaf, Roman found his forehead drenched in sweat. “Ugh, this will take a while…” But it wasn't until the third leaf, at the sight of its thin and weak-looking petiole - “Wait, I'm so stupid…” - was when he realized how simple the task assigned to him truly was. With both hands gripping the sides of the leaf which was as wide as his entire torso, Roman twisted the entire blade menacingly. Within seconds, the petiole ruptured, tearing the entire leaf off its branch. “Alright!” One by one, Roman began breaking each leaf off entirely, while dropping them to the ground below between snaps. This is a much easier way to collect the gold! “Ouch,” he muttered, caressing his knee as it caught a bump on the twig he kneeled on. He forgot the tree's branches were snaggy and hardly sittable. I just have to avoid the sharper parts, he thought, and grinned as he continued collecting. To Roman, it simply meant higher risk, higher reward. For a million dollars, nothing was impossible. And so he continued breaking off every leaf from the bonsai tree. By the end of the day, only one thought lingered in his mind: How should I spend my million bucks? Not a single leaf remained on the tree. A smile engulfed his face as Dr. Miro greeted him from the ground below. “Congrats, now please come down.” A red ladder appeared just below his feet, prompting him to finally come down from a long day of treasure hunting. Roman smirked as he reached the ground, observing the pile of leaves he gathered next to the trunk. “You completed the task in a way I expected you to,” Dr. Miro explained. “Nice, now where's my money?” But then it happened. “Wait, what the fuck?!” Roman cried as his feet began sinking into the dirt. Any yank from either leg proved to be useless. “Your time has come to an end,” Dr. Miro explained with a sigh. “What do you mean?!” Roman yelled as the dirt underneath continued swallowing him up like quicksand. “You became greedy, and prioritized your own self-interests over the health of my bonsai tree.” “Screw off! You're the one who told me-” “Yes, that I know. And it's not just your fault, it's our fault.” With one last scream of agony, Roman's head tucked under the enveloping dirt from the ground. Two Days Later João walked into his former professor's lab while a policewoman followed from behind. “Dr. Roman Miros Santos passed away in his lab yesterday due to cerebral hypoxia,” the cop explained. “I recall he was also suffering from a few mental illnesses, and sometimes referred to himself as two different people,” replied João. “But even our president loved him.” “That's ‘cause he was an advocate for the President's Deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest project last year…” “Ah, yes, I remember his ten-year-old bonsai tree was completely dead when I found his body. No leaves, no life,” answered João. “There's a lot of folklore about that bonsai tree species. It's said that Gaia, the Goddess of Nature, created that tree to test the morals of humans. It could grow gold, but the only way to extract it without damaging the tree was to let the leaves fall by themselves. Gaia was testing greed. The tree's bumpy branches represented the uselessness of those who knew, but ignored its pleas for help.”

There is a secret to everything, Everyone's secret. Every mammal has its own milk, Even our galaxy has got its milky way, Milk & honey its messengers have rarely seen, Whenever we had it, it was a gift from the Everpresent unseen. We thought we're able enough to produce our own, we usually double it with water & sugar to keep our pockets as lubrified as our eyes. When He denied us the fictitious milk of golden calves, we started harvesting the milk of stray dogs, easter bunnies, our eyes milky with the cataract of money. If you breastfeed your child up to four or five it ain't madness to be locked up in towers, sarcastically publicized, it's throwing his future in the range of his Father's hands. Sometimes a mother's unable to point out a temporary father and even if she did, he doesn't bother, yet the real Father has never denied tears of a child or of his mother. Too often at the end of a life lived in our own sweat and the sweat of others, we count our bars of gold as we were told by the political statistician who kept our heart frozen on doses of ultimate sensation and morphine, too often we discover our bars are milky and their date to be consumed has long expired, that's when we generously melt them and give them to others. If you want your Eternity strong, melt your bars young, before your dates run out give them to Him, give them to the insignificant others... your treasure safely stored beyond the Milky Way.

 Did you know that too much of chocolates could possibly kill us? If we eat 22lb of chocolates, that is around 40 bars of dairy milk, at one go, we could be dead. Why chocolate, too much of anything could be dangerous. Too much of smoking could cause lung cancer, too much of water could cause water intoxication or too much of running could plaque your arteries. Too much of anything and everything is bad and could possibly kill us. We must take in as much as we need, not as much as we want. But, our wants have no limits. And when it comes to greed too much seems too little. We keep asking for more as no amount is enough to satisfy our greed. A man once said that if he had enough land he can lead a happy life. The devil heard this and thought of testing this man. The devil in the disguise of the village headman was ready to offer this man land. As much land as he could walk around on his feet in a single day. But there was a condition; the man must be back to the starting point by sunset. The next day at the break of dawn the man started walking. He kept on walking and walking as far as his eyes went. No amount of land covered was enough for a happy life. At late afternoon he realized he was way too far from the point he started and he must start walking back now. But it was too late and the starting point was far, far away. The sun started setting. The man started running ferociously thinking that, he will lose all the land he covered. He finally did reach the point, touched it, and fell unconscious. He was dead by that exhaustion of running and the fear of losing all that land. The only land he could take with him after his death was that 6ft land he was buried in. The devil is nothing but greed, which tempts you to keep asking for more till you have satisfied yourself. How much land was enough to feed this man's greed? It is never possible to satisfy human wants. When we were standing, we wanted a place to sit. When we get a place to sit, we want a place to rest. When we get a place to rest we want a comfortable place to sleep. And this goes on and on. I have a cousin who loves cookies. Once he was eating cookies from the cookie jar in the kitchen. He picked cookies one by one from the jar and ate them. He thought he could take more cookies if he takes two cookies at a time. So, he started picking two cookies at a time. It was difficult but somehow he managed. But then he thought why not try taking more cookies. So, he started picking three-four cookies at a time. This time his hand got stuck in the jar. He could not take his hand out without letting go of those cookies. But he did not want to let go. His hand started aching, he let go of the cookies along with the jar, and the jar broke.  That's what happens if we fail to let go on time. We wait till the saturation point, to let go. Thanks to our greed, we keep holding on to something that we desire till we are forced to let go. This ends in a disastrous manner. But not all greed is bad. Sometimes greed is good too. Greed for providing better education to the children in his village of Murshidabad made Babar Ali the youngest Principal at the age of 16. Greed to climb to the highest peak in the world even when she didn't have her left leg made Arunima Sinha the first handicapped person to climb Mount Everest. Greed is a common human attribute. We cannot possibly escape from it. If you are away from the greed for something, it is because you are in the greed for another thing. A spiritual leader may claim that he is not greedy for money or materials in the world. It is because he is in greed for spiritual learning. Greed is in me and in you. No human being is born without it. When a baby is born, it wants to talk. When it starts talking it wants to walk. And after walking it wants to run. Human greed keeps our learning process intact. The whole world is in the greed for achieving something or the other. So it is impossible for us to be aloof from greed. Instead of teaching every child not to be greedy, we must teach them how to channelize this greed for good. After all it just needs the right greed.