The curtain opens on a room with two mannequins standing next to a prisoner lying on a gurney covered by a sheet. Two IV tubes snake out of the wall into each of the arms protruding from the sheet.

One of the mannequins reaches for the phone to insure there is no last minute reprieve. The signal is given and cold fluids are released. There is a slight spasm as the fluids contact their human target. A few minutes later, the condemned is dead and we have been saved.

That night there are a few one liners on the news with a photo of the condemned and maybe twenty tear stained seconds of the victim's family giving thanks they have finally achieved closure.

We breathe a collective sigh of relief. A cancer has been chemically erased and the streets are again safe for us to travel. And the myth goes on. The myth is that the execution will serve as a deterrent to shield us from danger. The truth is that over the last decade there was one execution for every 377 murders committed in Florida. And the myth goes on.

Built into these snapshots are assumptions the mannequins on stage have no feelings, the witnesses are dispassionate observers, the family of the condemned actually achieves closure and no one is hurt in the process. So the storyline proceeds.

We deceive ourselves with the fiction that the system has infallible safeguards that protect the innocent. Yes, Elizabeth, there IS a Santa Claus.

The two mannequins standing beside the condemned are in fact living human beings. They have to trust, they have to believe, the system is perfect and the condemned on the gurney is truly guilty. It is their ultimate faith.

Their ultimate horror is that they may have executed an innocent human being. This is the stuff of nightmares. This is the foundation of substance abuse. This is the basis for dysfunctional and abusive family relationships. And the contamination is created. The condemned is person with a mother, father, siblings, maybe even a wife and child. What mother wants her child executed? What wife wants her husband executed? What child wants to see such ugliness? And the contamination spreads out.

Then there is the jury. The horror of the discovery that they have convicted and sent an innocent person to be executed. And the contamination spreads out.

Imagine the horror of the victim's family who discovers that they demanded and got the execution of an innocent person. And the contamination spreads out.