Commentary: In the next seat

ABOARD UNITED AIRLINES FLIGHT 185, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- The pre-dawn trek through Northern Virginia in light traffic is a blur. In the mind's eye, the images of a Boeing aircraft slamming into the towers of the World Trade Center supersedes the sight of countless red dots, the tail lights of cars ahead, on the way to Washington Dulles International Airport.

For the first time since Sept. 11, I was about to get on an airplane.

With fear and trepidation, the car radio playing loud rock music to distract me from my thoughts, I park in the Blue Lot and wait at shelter number 2 for the shuttle to the main terminal.

Fidgeting with my luggage tag, trying hard not to spend too much time thinking about how, on Sept. 11, a friend of mine was killed while making a similar trip on a similar Tuesday to appear on the same television program on which I will appear in several hours.

The terminal feels quiet. It is full of people, even though it is still before 7 a.m. No one seems to be rushing. Everyone seems patient.

Boarding pass in hand, I head for the first security checkpoint. I notice a man behind me. Dark-skinned, wearing a blue suit, and carrying no luggage. I strike up a conversation -- "Where are you going?" Am I looking for a chance to brag about being on television or do I want to just hear his voice, see if he has an accent, judge if he is a threat?

He is quite pleasant and on his way to Hartford, Conn. Even if he is a threat, which he probably is not, we are not going to the same place, so he is someone else's problem in the pre-dawn hours.

Ahead of me, an attractive woman in a black leather coat is fumbling with her bag. She is muttering to herself -- is that a French accent she has or is it Arabic? She is oblivious to the entreaties of the security guard, trying to explain to her that she must put her carry-on onto the conveyor belt and send it through the X-Ray machine.

The guard tries to wave me past her but, unusual for me, I pause. Aside from not wanting to add to the confusion building in the line, a quick mental calculation informs me that, if I go ahead of her, she will be between my bag and me -- which unsettles me. I smile and wait.

Eventually I reach the gate. Passengers seem to regard one another more furtively then they may once have done. Are any of them a potential threat to me? Do I appear as a potential threat to any of them?

What about the gray-haired man in the sport coat reading the book on Afghanistan? Is the balding fellow with the mustache and leather vest a threat? Are any of the swarthy men and women who look like they could - emphasis added by my anxiety -- be from the Middle East reason for concern?

And then there is the matter of the bag, sitting all by itself on a row of seats. I go off to find a cup of coffee and, when I return, a policeman asks me if the bag is mine. It isn't and no one in the gate area claims it. I try desperately to recall what the fellow who was sitting next to it looked like, to no avail.

The policeman calls for a bomb dog, a medium-sized German Shepard, who comes and sniffs the bag and moves away, unimpressed. Not so the other waiting passengers, who watch from a distance concerned, and oddly, given the way life has changed since Sept. 11, amused.

The queue forms to board. "Why are so many passengers carrying suitcases and boxes and garment bags in addition to what I thought was supposed to be the allotted one personal bag?" I ask myself. What could any of them be hiding, if anything?

Watching carefully as the others stow their bags in the overhead bins, I realize this traditional pre-flight ritual has taken on a new meaning after Sept. 11. Did the fellow in the purple shirt just slip something up into his sleeve while putting his garment bag away? What is the fellow in the aisle pulling out of his bag before he puts it away? And why won't the two women in the seats across the aisle stop blabbering during the pre-flight safety drill? Don't they realize that the information, even though we have all probably seen it dozens of times before and could recite parts from memory, could save our lives?

After Sept. 11, it seems more important, even essential, rather then just something to kill time before the plane backs away from the gate.

The more time the plane is in the air, the more the images and impressions of normalcy seem to return. The meal service, complete with plastic knives, the in-flight move, the fasten seat belt signs that flash on and off and ping, all work together to exorcise the demons left floating in the air after Sept. 11.

Air travel is, numerous studies show, a far safer way to travel then by automobile. But knowing that doesn't help alleviate the apprehension most of us appear to have while making this flight. Nor does it, strangely enough, appear to ever cause anxiety when we get in the car for a trip on the highway. Can it be that the fear of flying that many of us had to face in recent weeks could be irrational?

For some people, the terrorists of Sept. 11 stole jobs, murdered family and friends, and caused direct and personal hardships. For many of us, and this is not meant to take away in any measure from the impact or importance of the other losses, what the terrorists took was our peace of mind. As we move on with life, trying against all odds to return to what we had before that day, this is a very important consideration.

We can chose to cower, to see every stranger as a potential threat, and be suspicious of our surroundings -- or we can go on about the business of life. Perhaps we will be a little more vigilant, more careful about the way we conduct tasks that were once merely mundane, but with an eye to recapturing that peace of mind we lost. If we can, secure in ourselves and free from fear, then the terrorists will have won little. If we cannot, then we give them a victory they have not earned, but achieved through cowardice and surprise.

(Peter Roff writes about politics for United Press International.)