when I become an eccentric billionaire I'm going to buy every house in 10 square blocks of unremarkable suburb. I will have them all furnished and decorated except for (and this is key) one house in the dead center. this house I will put up for sale at a ridiculously reasonable price for the area. once it sells, and the new owner/couple/family moves in, the plan will spring into action.
every single house besides the one in the center within my 10 square blocks will remain uninhabited. I will put all the lights inside on timers so that it appears that people are living in there, I will have lawns mowed when I'm sure everyone in my victim house is at work/school, I will have decorations put up during the holidays and cars moved there and parked in driveways when I'm sure that the owner/couple/family in the house at the center is not there to witness it happening. I will produce all the superficial trappings of life without a single person actually being there.
who knows how long it'll take them to realize that something is wrong? when their kids are playing in the yard, and they notice they've never seen another child around here even once, despite the four-bedroom family homes all down the street? after a few weeks, when they realize the lights in the house across the way click off at exactly 9:45, on the second, every single night? when they've been living there for a month and a half and they realize they've never seen a single car park in front of another house? when they want to greet their neighbors and not a single house in the whole neighborhood opens its door?
when they do realize that they're completely alone here, what would they do with that fact? what would you do if all at once, as you stood in a crowd, you realized that every single person around you was a mannequin? it's unnerving, sure, but enough to warrant a move? how long will they live in this idyllic ghost town before it gets to them? can a person survive in a dollhouse? Thank you. *I wave to the crowd as I walk offstage at my ted talk. one person gives a halfhearted round of applause from the back. a talk about sustainable ecosystem management was scheduled for right now and no one knows how I got up here.*
