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GEORGE:
Today: Bills of Mortality in plague London—
and COVID dashboards in our century.
How counting the dead can help a society tell the truth…
and how counting can also numb the heart.

GEORGE:
Quick reminder: my Shakespeare can look back from the present day.
He can read scholarship, watch modern productions, react to modern claims—
but he cannot predict the future. No prophecy.

WILL:
I am allowed memory.
Not foresight.

George, one might say that numbers become a character in epidemics

GEORGE:
When plague strikes, people don’t only want comfort.
They want certainty.
And certainty often arrives wearing a disguise: a chart.

WILL:
Because a chart feels like a railing on a steep stair.
You clutch it, even if it won’t stop you from falling.

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