The Dreamers’ saving grace amidst such barbarity was their unbounded generosity.

Predicting (correctly) that the kings from neighbouring cities might covet their infinite wealth, the Dreamers dreamt up a money tree that stood in the middle of the City of Dreams. Where fruit and flowers bloom on ordinary trees, the money tree sprouted gold and silver coins. Visitors who came in good faith were welcome to go to the tree and pluck as much wealth as they desired from its branches.

In this way, the peaceful Dreamers managed to stave off potential conquests from greedy king-neighbours who might desire (not unnaturally) to steal and hoard the Dreamers’ wealth for themselves.

Even so, this was not enough.

At first, the kings were overjoyed when they learnt of the open welcome given by the Dreamers to their money tree. Excitedly, they made pilgrimages to the tree with armies of packhorses and mules in devoted tow.

The kings reserved for themselves the pleasure of the first pick, and it was with the frenzy of piggy children in a candy store that they plucked money off the tree. It wasn’t until their flabby arms grew sore that they found the heart to leave the money tree to the brawnier plebeians, set like slaves to continue reaping for the royal coffers.

While the kings and their subjects picked away fiercely, the Dreamers stood by smiling and nodding, benevolent as fairy godmothers. Not that the ungrateful kings or their subjects paid much attention to the Dreamers around them. They were too besotted with their harvest of money. Besides, they believed that the Dreamers were obliged to open the tree to them, since they possessed such a decidedly unfair advantage over them in the generation of wealth.

When their coffers were stuffed to overflowing, the kings spent the first few weeks squatting admiringly in the middle of their treasuries, atop a mountain of gold coins. There, they began to chuckle to themselves as they played with the coins, running them through their fingers like rain. The less inhibited kings grunted happily as they wallowed round and round in the money till their bodies became quite pink and wet from the exercise.

After some time engaged in such meaningful occupation, the kings began to feel rather bored. So they decided to take a drive in their plush carriages to survey the extent of their kingdoms. Their intention of course was to see how much more land they could purchase, so as to add to their already vast dominions. Money, they thought, would save them the trouble of going to war.

As the kings drove around, they noticed that a new sheen of prosperity seemed to varnish the land and its people. Their subjects, once so cracked and lean from working in the sun, now boasted shiny new clothes that wrapped around their ample bodies and round faces.

Intrigued by this overnight transformation, they peered into the humble cottages strewn by the roads like dirt. They gasped. The peasants were sucking at fat juicy steaks instead of the pale, watery soups that used to be their staple!

The kings saw happiness fly out of their carriage windows. Gloom tiptoed in. They had forgotten that the money tree was open not just to the kings, but to every pleb who cared to visit the City of Dreams.

This was intolerable to the kings. It made a mockery of their power, for it only now occurred to them that anyone, even the earth-scraping serfs, could be as rich as the kings themselves if they so chose.

And then, an uncomfortable thought crept into their minds – what was the use in having so much money if everyone else was just as rich?

Slowly, they convinced themselves that the chief reason they felt so happy in the possession of wealth was the certain knowledge that others had less than them. If not all others, then most others.

The kings began to brood. A way must be found to control the money tree so that its wealth would only go to one king, or perhaps to just a few kings if diplomacy necessitated it.

The kings were strangely unconcerned about the possibility that their subjects might stop working if they felt they had enough money. And then, who would produce their food or clothes, or build their houses?

But such concerns were immaterial to the kings. Instead, they brooded on the sudden loss of the brief happiness they had felt when they had all the money in the world.

The happiness that comes from wealth, they surmised, could be theirs only in a world of difference, where some were rich and others poor. How else could the rich enjoy their wealth if they knew that everyone else was just as prosperous as themselves?

It was the unforgivable sameness of wealth that irked them; the smug equality and plump prosperity all around – it made them no better or more powerful than the lowliest serf on their land. The new kingdoms of plenty over which they reigned were a source of grief to Their Majesties. They began to curse the money tree and dreamt again of the days when gold was scarce and they had controlled vast treasuries while the peasants skinned their bones on the slices of earth they tended.

Jealous viziers, thieving off their masters’ apparent dissatisfaction, hastened to the kings’ sides like flies to turds, and whispered poisonous counsel into their ears. They cunningly muttered that the Dreamers possessed other types of wealth they did not have. Happiness was one of them, and what of beauty, love, and health? The Dreamers had an abundance of all this, which were perhaps even more important than money in helping them enjoy their lives. Perhaps the Dreamers had stashed away other trees of happiness, love, health and beauty in their City, and were too selfish to share them?

Besides, why didn’t the Dreamers have a ruler? It was time for a great King to seize the City of Dreams and unite everyone under the same government. Just think, Your Majesty, you will then have sole control of not just the money tree, but also of all the other secret trees of beauty, love, joy and health. You will be the richest, strongest, most powerful and handsomest man in the world. We could build empires overseas, conquer yet more lands, who knows, perhaps conquer the world? You will go down in history, o King, as the almighty conqueror who vanquished his unworthy foes and united the world under a single great ruler.

The viziers’ flattery scored with the foolish kings, and their royal minds wondered why they hadn’t thought of sacking the City of Dreams right from the start. Seize the City of Dreams and say goodbye to misery for eternity! The solution was so simple, it made them laugh. And as they laughed, they actually began to feel a little happier.

They did not foresee that there could be any resistance from the Dreamers. Those ninnies and milksops hadn’t the sense to keep any soldiers of their own for defence after all. They were that naively trusting. Or perhaps just foolishly pacifist.

The kings sniggered as they went through their battle plans with their army chiefs, ignorant of the other kings’ similar designs as they sat in their isolated castles in their separate kingdoms.

Unknown to the scheming kings and viziers, the Dreamers had already felt the mounting envy of their neighbours cloud their city like black news. In their childlike innocence, the Dreamers were saddened that their neighbours should desire to harm them, but also glad that they had managed to survive a hundred years unscathed on the island before anyone should desire to go to war with them. That was in itself an achievement, they thought.

But now, with the impending attacks by the neighbouring kings, they realised that their lovely city was but a monolithic misfit in a world that wasn’t yet ready for them. Perhaps they were a little too far ahead of their time.

When the Dreamers next gathered for their moon dance, a collective plan was born. A plan that would keep them safe until such time when their fellow humans might become more enlightened and be able to accept them again, and perhaps even learn the secrets of their ways.

They were patient. They could afford to wait, even if it took thousands of years. After all, they were immortal weren’t they?

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