text
stringlengths 1
593
⌀ | label
float64 0
3
|
---|---|
Enthusiastic, even.
| 1 |
Ray, he shook his head, and broke the quiet he'd held most of the evening.
| 2 |
“You've got it all wrong.”
| 3 |
He looked from Sarah, to Adrienne, to Zheng, to Kishori and Tiffany, to me.
| 3 |
“Obviously, we can't last longer than the rest of the universe.
| 3 |
We aren't giving anyone purpose.
| 2 |
All we're doing is existing.
| 0 |
All we're doing is eating and drinking and shitting, breathing and fucking and nothing important, ever.
| 0 |
We aren't special.”
| 2 |
“Again, bleak,”
| 2 |
“Again, bleak,” commented Zheng.
| 2 |
Adrienne gestured for him to be quiet.
| 2 |
She leaned forward, setting her elbows on the foot stool in front of her.
| 1 |
“You never know when it will end,”
| 0 |
“You can't hold on forever, even if you don't ever, ever want to forget.
| 3 |
How long until the memories slip away?
| 2 |
How long until all you remember is this, the ship, the thick red carpeting, the chandeliers, the empty conversations you hold with the other shells who used to be people?
| 0 |
I wondered how long Ray had been on this ship.
| 0 |
I wondered why, if he had such an unpropitious outlook, he hadn't tried to change his situation.
| 2 |
I wanted to ask, but he was still talking, and I was too self-conscious to interrupt.
| 2 |
“You can try to hold on,”
| 2 |
“You can try to hold on,” said Ray.
| 2 |
“You can try and try and try.
| 3 |
Repeat stories to yourself in the artificial night, sketch faces in your mind.
| 0 |
But words, if you repeat them enough times, lose their meaning.
| 3 |
My wife's name, once.
| 3 |
Repeat it enough times, it's just a sound.
| 3 |
These signals were the heralds of my saviors.
| 1 |
No longer grounded.”
| 1 |
Ray, he said, “If we last forever, if our eyes are the last eyes watching as the stars blink out, it won't mean a thing to us.
| 0 |
“If we last forever, if our eyes are the last eyes watching as the stars blink out, it won't mean a thing to us. We won't care that we're last and we won't care that there are no more stars. We aren't angels. We're just dumb and lucky.”
| 0 |
We aren't angels.
| 3 |
We're just dumb and lucky.”
| 2 |
“Pure dumb luck,”
| 2 |
“Pure dumb luck,” he said.
| 2 |
“Struck a nerve, huh?”
| 2 |
said Zheng.
| 3 |
“Sorry,”
| 0 |
“Sorry,” said Ray.
| 0 |
“How long ago was that?”
| 1 |
asked Adrienne.
| 0 |
“Leaving your wife, I mean.
| 2 |
“Leaving your wife, I mean. Traveling on this ship.”
| 1 |
The first words they said to me meant nothing.
| 0 |
Ray, he looked down at his hands, folded together in his lap, fingers interlaced.
| 3 |
“I don't know,”
| 2 |
“I don't know,” he said.
| 3 |
We were all quiet for a moment.
| 1 |
Ray shrugged, then got up and left.
| 0 |
We let him go.
| 3 |
Silent.
| 0 |
Self-conscious.
| 0 |
More excuses were made, and after a few moments, only Adrienne and I were left sitting in the ballroom.
| 2 |
She looked across the circle of couches at me.
| 2 |
“What's your theory?”
| 1 |
she asked me.
| 0 |
I shrugged.
| 2 |
“How long have you been here?”
| 0 |
I wasn't listening; I didn't care; I was going to live; I was going to keep breathing.
| 3 |
“Not that long,”
| 0 |
“Not that long,” I said.
| 0 |
“A couple weeks, I guess. Maybe a month or two.”
| 1 |
Maybe a month or two.”
| 3 |
“Why don't you know for sure?”
| 2 |
she asked.
| 1 |
I shrugged.
| 0 |
I hadn't been counting days.
| 0 |
“What did you do before this?
| 0 |
“What did you do before this? How were you found?”
| 3 |
How were you found?”
| 2 |
“I was an engineer.”
| 0 |
I explained how my ship had malfunctioned, no warning at all.
| 0 |
The explosions, the impossible rescue.
| 2 |
She nodded.
| 1 |
“The ship I was on, I guess that's what happened, too.
| 3 |
“The ship I was on, I guess that's what happened, too. Some vital part broke, and... well, boom. It was all so fast.”
| 2 |
Some vital part broke, and...
| 2 |
well, boom.
| 3 |
It was all so fast.”
| 2 |
“I'm going to figure it out,”
| 3 |
“I'm going to figure it out,” she said.
| 3 |
“How and why this ship exists.
| 0 |
“How and why this ship exists. I'll figure it out, then I'm going to find a way home.”
| 3 |
I paced my room that night, unable to sleep.
| 2 |
Next to those, nothing else mattered.
| 3 |
Worse, Adrienne had made this clear to me with a single question.
| 2 |
Fact: Adrienne intimidated me.
| 2 |
Fact: It's too easy to fall into patterns.
| 1 |
I resolved to break the pattern.
| 3 |
Another evening, another chandeliered room, another swirl of conversations and dances and hor d'oevres.
| 0 |
The recycled air tasted sweet in my mouth, and all thoughts that crossed my mind were cheap metaphors about life-giving substances and how breathing was like sex, only better.
| 1 |
“Has anyone ever left?”
| 0 |
Adrienne looked at each of us in turn.
| 2 |
Ray exchanged a glance with Zheng.
| 3 |
Sarah frowned.
| 0 |
“Now that you mention it, I haven't seen Alexis in days.
| 2 |
“Now that you mention it, I haven't seen Alexis in days. I assumed he was indisposed.”
| 2 |
I assumed he was indisposed.”
| 3 |
Kishori nodded in agreement.
| 1 |
After the first whoosh of the air being sucked away, there was lightning, but no thunder.
| 2 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.