Traveling the Rails

     The train seemed unusually empty this morning. Tucker gazed out of the window as a mob of deer disappeared into the underbrush at the edge of the clearing for the train tracks. He thought back to half an hour earlier, when he'd been standing on the platform awaiting the train, as he circumspectly perused the anatomy of the violet-tinged Veronian Female. As exotic a species as existed in the known galaxy. Their cartoon-like dimensions -- wasp waists, with exaggerated curves of hip, buttocks and some of the roundest, most ample...
     He shook his head slightly and came out of his reverie, lest he might have started to feel aroused at the mere thoughts of copulation with such an exotic creature. And even though, the occupants of the train numbered few, he felt his face grow hot as if he had lost self-control in earnest and felt a sliver of the mortification that would have accompanied the slip.
     "Just wouldn't be becoming of a Princeton Man!", Tucker muttered, in mockery of his father, a fellow alumnus of the institution as well.
     He wondered why the car was so empty. Wednesday morning, should have seen the car ready to burst, with riders standing, sitting and everything in between as the train traveled down the track.
     Probably that threat roving across the net issued by that new xenophobe terrorist organization something or other. He tried to relax himself by watching the morning news being displayed on the vid surface above the exit door to the forward car of the train.
     As the train arrived at the Brockmeyer Station, Tucker contemplated whether or not to take advantage of the lighter than usual ridership and make the switch over to the neon line, which would have allowed him to obtain breakfast at his favorite cafe before transferring to the gold line of the transit system. A flash of light caught his attention, however, the only visible sign of something amiss consisted of a wispy puff of smoke.
He exited the train and turned to his left. Another flash of light appeared directly to his left, it illuminated the under carriage of the train. His eyes widened as he desperately threw himself to the side and dove head-first into a nearby trash bin, with the thoughts of an executed terrorist plot at the forefront of his mind. He waited several moments, as he strained to hear if others, less alert than himself, had been harmed by the attack.
     After the passage of another minute or so, he righted himself and stuck his head up over the rim of the bin, he had expected to survey the damage from the attack. Shocked, at what he saw, he tried to retain some dignity, when passersby gawked at a man they must have thought mad. His disheveled appearance and his previous actions had drawn all eyes on such a slow day of travel. He had not managed to bring his briefcase over the lip of the bin and it had been forced open by the force with which it had impacted the floor. The contents of the briefcase lay scattered about the area in front of the trash bin and the off-white tiled square pillar to the left side of the bin.
     As the train he had occupied moved off into the distance, he glimpsed the likely source of the flashes of light and the accompanying smoke. A pack of terfluvents -- a rodent-like creature, about three feet in length, indigenous to the Planet Xeria, had been wandering near the live rail that powered the train.
     Tucker attempted to brush away a partially eaten gagoa fruit -- stuck to the front of his blazer. As he extricated himself from the trash bin, the thought entered his mind, This just wasn't becoming of a Princeton Man.