Actually, if you plan to be away from the game for many days and don't plant enough food, there is a possibility that one of the townsfolk could starve. Mrs. Mottershead should have mentioned that during the early part of the game. There are ways to prevent that, though, with a little advance planning.

You're right, there is no pause (yet) in Virtual Town. We are considering adding that to the game, since all of our other games have a pause function. It's not simple to do, though, since Virtual Town is a much more complex game. We're not promising it will happen, but we're looking at it.