Sky Jail / 66 Park
Walking through midtown, I got the idea for a short story called "Sky Jail" or maybe “66 Park.” A billionaire buys the top-story penthouse of a mega-luxury tower, and turns it into a reality show social experiment. You sign a contract, and are forced to stay up there for a whole month. You can’t go down. It’s effectively prison, except it’s luxury beyond your imagination, and it’s all live-streamed. There could be a science fiction element, where drugs/food/pleasure/knowledge/technology are all combined to create an experience that is so beyond what someone has ever experienced, that they get depressed at the thought of going back down the tower, down the elevator to return to the real world. Every contestant decides to jump off the balcony, ending life “on high” (in literal/metaphor heaven—but it’s more like hell really). The twist is that a contestant goes up there, outsmarts the billionaire, and gets him to jump. It’s a modern version of the Faustian Bargain fable, but with modern social dynamics and supernatural magic replaced with technology.