The Upside Down Is My Privilege

A Mock Fantasy Thriller

Photo by Robert Zunikoff on Unsplash

They were doing a poll in front of the supermarket.

Make your privilege work for you, read a roll-up banner.

And below, in smaller print: Share your privileges, and you may be up for an unbelievable prize!

A young woman approached me with a professional smile.

“Would you have a few minutes to spare on a short questionnaire?”

I never stop, whatever they ask or hand out. This time, though, I found their banner so hilarious that I decided on the spot I was in for a laugh.

“What kind of poll is that?”

She made a quick note on her pad that only took a second, never letting her smile fade out.

“Oh, we’re doing research into what people feel privileged for. We need to understand what privileges are out and about in our society. You know, social justice, equal opportunities?

“The data will be anonymised, of course, you needn’t worry on that account. So first, some demographic details, if that’s fine.

“Do you identify as female?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Which age group are you: 20 to 30, -“

“Thank you for the compliment: over 50.”

“Are you here just for a quick shop, or you’re stocking up on supplies for several days, possibly a week?”

“More like a week.”

“And how much are you planning to spend, just roughly? 20 to 30, — “

“About 100 euros”, I replied.

“How am I doing? Am I gaining or losing points?” I asked. How much worth was 100 euros on a privilege scale, I wondered?

She smiled and nodded but omitted to answer.

“What’s your level of education? High-school, vocational training — “

“Postgraduate”, I said, and I’m pretty sure I blushed. Was I getting embarrassed about so much privilege?

“Do you live alone, or do you have other dependents?”

“I have the entire place to myself, if that’s what you’re asking. But this has its reverse, too: I always have dinners, a glass of wine, or watch Netflix alone. How are you scoring this?” I asked, winking at her.

She shook her head, nervously, as if trying to chase away a pestering mosquito.

“Right, so you live alone. But then, you said — “

She broke off and turned her page to make a note there.

Aha! I said to myself. So the privileges might be on the front side and the shortcomings on the back.

“How many times have you moved house in your life?” she went on, almost undisturbed.

“Quite a few, I’d say. Does moving to another country count here?”

“Yes, although not here exactly, there’s a question on immigration background — but I might just as well record it now”.

She turned the page again. Was it the back, or the front, I wondered? I’d got confused.

“I don’t have an immigration background”, I joked. “My background is fine; I’m an immigrant”, I added.

She raised her eyes for a flashing moment, and I could see she was getting impatient with me. I decided to be more helpful.

“I came to Germany when I was almost forty, so of course, you could say, pretty late in life for such a change. Lucky me for being able to speak German, though.”

Here I was, confusing her again! A plus for knowing German, a minus for immigrating just before the midlife crisis. How could my scorecard add up?

She was getting stuck, I could see. She’d lost it a bit, trying to sort out which info goes on which side of the page. So I decided to be even more helpful.

“I hadn’t set my mind on Germany in particular, don’t get me wrong. I just absolutely wanted to get away from Romania, and my partner was German, so it was easiest to move here, you see.

“Oh, and –“ I realised I was creating further misunderstandings.

“I wasn’t evading any law enforcement, again, don’t get me wrong. That’s not why I absolutely wanted to get away.

“And I had no financial difficulties in Romania either. I was actually quite well-off, in a way, for an average citizen and a single mother.”

She gazed at me expectantly, almost challenging me to finally reach the point.

“I just had a major family disaster, that’s all. That kind of nightmare when your loving loved ones start chasing you with an axe in their hands.

“I mean — lawyers, plots, eviction, negative lobbying with everyone who knew me, that sort of thing.”

Her eyes bulged out. I laughed. Although I’d been dead earnest about it.

“Don’t worry, all’s fine. I survived”.

“My god, it must have been terrible. I’m sorry,” she added, putting her hand to her mouth, embarrassed to be getting so personal. “But when you came here, things were fine, right?”

“Well, yes, but I had no job, for a long time, with all my connections lost. And Romania had offered opportunities that simply weren’t available here.”

“But you said your partner is German”, she probed.

“Was. We broke up within a year”, I said, laughing.

How many more blows was I going to give her, poor soul, who was just polling charming middle-class people doing their shopping on a Saturday morning?

She looked at me in disbelief. I suppose she wasn’t sure whether to admire me for my cool spirit or declare me nuts.

“No, look, I’m sorry, it sounds like such a depressing story — for being real, because if it was a movie, you’d say it’s a cheap soap. Okay, you could make it into a horror, I guess. That was my Upside Down, come to think of it.”

“Your what?” she enquired in a thin voice.

“You don’t watch Netflix? I binge-watched Stranger Things, the series, with my daughter over the Easter vacation when she visited.”

I smiled, remembering the fun we’d had. What a privilege!

“So, basically, it’s the same world as ours, just upside down.

“Mine was really upside down in a way.

“You see, I’d always tried so hard to get a bit of normalcy. I felt uncomfortably different. As a teenager, you know, normalcy would have been to have a clique, and go to the mountains with a guitar on the shoulder. Instead, there were long, empty hours, just one friend, as socially awkward as me.

“Later, that normalcy was about having a relationship that might work, romance and all.

“But you know what was insane? Not having that was making me feel unfulfilled.

“I had a lovely kid, my daughter. And my work was so exciting; I was a pro, never getting bored, never a captive in a 9-to-5 routine. I had some sort of a family around, more or less. And a bit of social life in between, with a few friends.

“But no, I was unhappy nonetheless. My life is empty, that kind of thing. Something’s missing, and I’m not complete. I loved my daughter and cared for her, and I loved my work and everything else — but they just didn’t count in my inventory towards normalcy and fulfilment. It was almost like a photo where apart from yourself, the rest is black-and-white, almost invisible. I was still too much of an odd one, apparently, not normal enough, not fitting with the image of a brilliant woman in her thirties. Because I was single. And alone. I thought.

“And then came the Upside Down: the family war and my flight to Germany to find some ersatz of a home. And then — “ I left my sentence hanging ironically, announcing the big bang.

“And then it all turned upside down. All those things that had been black and white, almost invisible, came to life. Either because they were demanding my immediate attention, or because they were gone from the picture altogether.

“My daughter got real. I started investing in our relationship. There was a danger at some point that others might wedge themselves in between us, and I suddenly realised that I had to act, or I’ll lose her.

“So I tidied up the place and started listening to her.”

I paused and glanced at the woman’s face. She was listening with large eyes. The supermarket had vanished, and the rest of the world with it. There was just me and her, and my story.

“Yes, well, and then the work? There was none,” I laughed again. “For the first six months or so, I was grateful for it. But then it started being more and more of a pain. It wasn’t necessarily the money but the fact that I had no idea what I wanted to do.

“And friends, or social life? Gone, no trace. No place even to go out on my own. Theatre, or a concert, as I’d been used to in Bucharest? No chance. I was stranded in a dead place in a dull region, somewhere else in Germany, far away from here.

“I was now trying to upgrade those things in my life that had been okay back in Romania but not so prominent as to make it into my inventory. Now they were on my problem list.”

I smiled at the woman because she made me feel pity for her.

“But anyway”, I said, changing the pitch of my voice, “it all worked out in the end, and I’m fine.”

“You’ve found friends and are having a social life, right? And you’ve found what you wanted to do for a living”, the young woman volunteered.

“Yes, I found that, by chance, as so often in life. I’m delighted with the work I do. And yes, I do have a social life; I go out on my own mostly, because I’m still pretty solitary, but I have plenty of places to go to. And I’m very thankful for that, too.

“My daughter’s far away now, but we’re each the other’s favourite person in the world. I feel blessed for that alone.”

She smiled. She’d got back the twinkle in her eyes, and she’d resumed breathing. Relieved.

“Right”, she said, looking down at her paper, remembering she had to fill things in. “I don’t suppose I could ask you now…” she said, sighing with embarrassment.

“Sure, go ahead, I’ve taken so much of your time with my life’s story”, I exclaimed.

“Well, it says here, and I must ask you: do you feel privileged in any way? I mean, in spite of — ”

She had a guilty look on her face.

I smiled.

“But I’ve been telling you about it all this time.

“My privilege is my Upside Down.

“It toggled back to life all the things that were kind to me but which I couldn’t see properly.

“And yes — well, normalcy. I’m no longer seeking it. Now I feel privileged for being different.”

I wasn’t sure how many points this would get me on their scale of privilege, or of sharing. Would I win their prize, I wondered tongue-in-cheek.

Privilege can be such a tricky business. Good thing, bad thing — burden and salvation.

---

And you?

What do you feel privileged for, in your life? What makes you feel alive, get out of bed, keep up whatever work you are doing?

Does it sometimes seem to you that people are wrongly assuming you are privileged for one or another thing, which for you is not?

Have you also felt over time a certain pressure — a burden — coming with the privilege you were enjoying? It could be a certain responsibility, or a risk involved.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.