Numbers or words

Although numbers do not tell stories

as graphically as words do

both can murder efficiently –

Both numbers and words can kill you.

Behind the tyrant on the balcony

sits an unsmiling accountant

listening to his oratory

with the cold heart of the merely numerate.

His story may be less colourful

a narrative that only he can see

but death is hiding in his ledgers

he can subtract you from history.

Evil does not require empathy.

He is a true master of infamy.