There is a city called Salemo.

Salemo sits atop a cliffside at the edge of a sea. The water of that sea is always clearest blue, except when it is clearest green, or clearest purple. The colors change with the tides, but the waves are always safe to swim in, with schools of luminescent fish dashing between the coral reefs. In Salemo, you can spend your days lying on its pristine beaches, never once getting sunburned, or you can travel to its grand markets, where you can find anything you could possibly desire. You won’t find what you need there, no, because what you need is provided for you by the city itself. Medicine, food and water, shelter and clothing are all given freely, to residents and visitors alike. And new immigrants to Salemo get their pick of housing, from apartments jutting skyward in great towers, to houses hanging off the cliffsides, every home bigger on the inside than the outside would imply.

As for what the city asks of its residents, nothing. Truly. Work can be provided if you so seek it, but you can relax. You are not paying for your peace with fear, or feelings of inadequacy, or an endless hunt for resources. Each day, the city has a parade, peoples from all over coming to celebrate, confetti slowly falling between the buildings, always cleaned up before the mad rush to dinner.

And the food! Each bite more delicious than the last. The drink is incredible too, spirits that make you drunk without a hangover.

You can wake when you wish in Salemo. You can rise with the sun, peaking over the purple horizon, shining off the city’s gleaming towers. You can rise with the noon, when the light beams overhead, illuminating the city so, for a moment, there is not a single shadow. You can rise in the afternoon, heralding in the dancing and music that plays until dusk. Or you can rise when the stars glimmer in the sky, when the city goes quiet, when the air is crisp and clean, and you can eat an apple under the moon’s glow.

There are no police in Salemo, because there is no crime. There is no crime because all its societal causes have been eliminated, and all its individual factors have been discouraged.

You are waiting for the twist, aren’t you? Waiting for Salemo’s flaw.

There is one, yes. We’ll get to it. But for now, imagine Salemo. Picture row after row of homes, however you’d like. Picture nature so nearby, or so far, your pick. See the waves of that tricolored sea, and never imagine a hurricane, because they never come to Salemo. It can be machines or magic that makes all this happen, it doesn’t matter. It’s up to you.

Imagine what you could be in such a place, where all peoples are treated equal, where you can become what you most desire without risk or fear. Imagine. Imagine.

Now, for the twist. Go ahead. Guess it. Hold what you think the cost is in your mind.

Wrong or not, the twist is something you already know. The twist is that Salemo isn’t real. Nowhere on this planet or any other is that city, that perfect city out on that cliff by that perfect sea. It is made up. There is no place so wondrous.

Yet.

For if you wish to see Salemo, go to a cliffside by a sea, purple or otherwise. Bring a shovel. And join those who dig there, building what might yet be.