Stylized cartoons — the "Incredibles" family, the blocky old man in "Up" — often fill us with empathy, but a pseudo-human like the train conductor voiced by Tom Hanks in "The Polar Express" makes us want to hide under the bed.
For company, there was the Conductor, voiced first by Ringo Starr and later by George Carlin, and then the trains: gentle blue Edward, moody green Henry, big strong Gordon, little red James, and, of course, Thomas, with his pointed eyebrows and perpetual smile.
The conductor's voice echoed over the public address system: "Good morning, everyone.
"2,500 yuan?!?" he snorted at the bus conductor, his voice dripping with disdain, steam practically roiling from his ears.
Miraculously, the doors opened, and the conductor's voice came over the intercom, "Sir, watch your mouth and get on the train".
As the train stopped at the station yesterday morning, the conductor's voice sounded troubled over the intercom inside the motorman's cab.
At the next station, the train paused longer than usual, & we heard the conductor's voice "Now, easy does it Just take a hold, lady, & Jake will heft up on your other hip".
On Sunday, passengers on a Brooklyn-bound N train seemed confused as a muffled conductor's voice announced a rerouting along the local line, the R train, starting at DeKalb Avenue.
Train cleaners wielding worn-sided corn brooms and generic spray bottles marked "lemon" or "Windex" amble onto the cars, rousting any sleepers and drunks unmoved by the conductor's voice grating through speakers: "This is the last stop on this train".
Tempest is a tempest here, a conductor of voices and a lightning conductor as she writes about seven sleepless people in London, tormented by a world gone awry in a gathering storm.
