A possible story: a middleclass fellow goes on a trip, at vertiginous speed through the social classes, crashing through the glass ceilings within a few months. Joe , average Joe, travelling salesman for an insurance company loses his job one day when the said company goes bankrupt . Most of his savings were in a fund held by his company, so he has just enough money left to move to a rougher part of town and take up a job as a milkman. His/her friends trying to persuade him and themselves that they still value him for his personality, but they rapidly stop going to see him because they don't like the area he now lives in, so unsafe, and they don't invite him out either because he can't afford to buy a drink at the pub they usually go to. Suddenly, for some reason, another fall down one crucial level, from being working poor to being a handout receiver (that terrible dip below the surface of society . Those above you - that is all almost everyone, even the working poor - now don't talk to you anymore, they only give, or refuse to give. What is terrible is the silence, like being very deep under the water. He starts to understand why the bums living in cardboards keep shouting nonsense at themselves, and other bums, to create an illusion of dialogue. There is food and warm beds in the charity homes, but the handout receiver is an exile far away from humanity. Even a murderer, fresh out of jail, could get some grudging respect, out of fear. But to have old ladies reading the Bible to you, and lecturing you about the importance of cleanliness. Even a poodle gets affection - you are less than that. Most of the bums are half mad. From there, after a few months, a sudden tug of the cord, and he goes up, up, up, crashing the glass ceilings from the bottom this time: he has picked up a lottery ticket with the big prize. A daze, a blur: he can barely breathe. Suddenly, he feels afraid: after these months of loneliness at the very bottom, would not being at the very top another sort of loneliness ? Maybe the very rich are also monomaniacs. He craves for familiar ground. So, he moves to another town, buys a nice middle class flat, clothes, car, and eventually gets back a nice middle class job like the one he used to have. And starts making friends who feel pretty much like the ones he used to have. However, various feelings start to nag him. A vague kind of guilt. Since I 've known poverty, shouldn't I, sort of, do something for them" Where to start ? The poor need friends, advice, but he's scared of going back there. Especially afraid of the bums. They live in the past, while their bodies are stuck in an eternal present, every day being like yesterday and the day before. Another irritant: having to pretend being middle class. One day he dates a woman, and brings her to an expensive french restaurant, and she thinks it is for a special occasion, - he's giong to ask her to marry him - in fact he just wanted to try the food. He hates going to that kind of place by himself - he is very afraid of being alone now, and dreads the thought of sitting by himself in that half lit restaurant, waiting for the snobbish waiter to bring the next course, feeling that everyone is watching him. And he does not want to date a rich woman either; he feels he would never really be at ease in that milieu , because he was not born into it, and came into it too late - and just after having been a bum. Taking a holiday, he stays in a five star hotel in the caribbeans, and realises that he still hates being in a hotel room at night as much as he used to, when he was a travelling salesman, and it makes no difference that this one is in a five star hotel. Who to talk to, either, during the day ? Ach, poor guy. Shall he have to resign himself to being rich ? Should he go into philantropy ? For which cause , how does one start redoing the world ? The poor children, the environment, AIDS. The bums he knew, they were out there for so many reasons - family quarrels, lost job ( just like him)... how to tackle this - go into politics ? This is a story that could on to many pages ! A possible twist: there then appears a government spokesman who tells him : "We know that you have won this lottery of many million dollars, though you insisted on keeping your anonymity. It is your patriotic duty to spend this money - we have a small economy , which has been languishing lately. Private vice, public virtue- spend, build yourself a palace, it shall stimulate the construction industry. Take up a chauffeur, cooks, gardeners, create jobs. Make yourself rich friends abroad, and then bring them home, good for our tourism industry, organise charity balls, our mundane life is moribund. The world needs rich people. If they did like you, that would bring the world economy crashing down".