Mike, the charcoal smuggler, hitchhiked to the village after his girlfriend dumped him for being bankrupt. That morning, he strolled through the grass and spotted a dry-rotted tree. Then, he raised his bushy eyebrows and flashed a camera at the bottle-shaped tree. 

The wood-lice tree reminded him of the ‘fig tree’ that a televangelist had preached about last Sunday. First, he updated his status by taking a selfie with the money-generating tree in the background. Soon, he smacked the jackpot tree with kisses. 

“Money grows on trees,” he said, closing the zip of his yawning wallet. He flicked his thumb over the iPhone, and numbered the bundles of firewood that he could chop from this tree. His eyes sparkled as he looked at the towering tree. The holy crook estimated that the bundles of firewood would run into millions of dollars. Suddenly, a missed call from the televangelist beeped his iPhone, and he brought a sharp-sword axe. 

This time, he changed his ringtone to “The love of money is the …” Upon returning to the woodworm-infested tree, Mike looked at his footprint. Something strange had happened; his left spoor pointed frontward while the right footmark pointed backward. 

He chuckled, and rubbed the chicken pimples around his arms. The firewood seller was yawning when a fist-sized fly got into his mouth. He choked on the buzzing fly before spitting out the green-headed fly. Then he swung his axe as a woodpecker alighted on the tree. The chirping bird alarmed the chicks to flap their wings. 

Mike’s palms itched at the golden coins filling his wallet as soon as the firewood was shipped to RSA. Immediately, he swung the axe, but a swarm of bees stung his face. His forehead became swollen, and his reddened eyes gushed boiling tears. Afterwards, he crisscrossed a finger over his chest and shouted, “A truckload of money to spoil my ex-girlfriend.” 

The termite-infested tree creaks from the sharpened axe, but an army of black ants came out in big numbers. The dripping venom ants stung his arms and left red-bursting pimples all over them. Mike popped a can of bug juice at the ants, and the colony stopped crawling. Again, tyre-smelling ants stung him before the tree crashed to the ground. 

First, he smiled, then licked his axe, before texting his ex-girlfriend. Unfortunately, a mob of tree-worshipping villagers clubbed the penniless man with golf-like walking sticks.