Stairway to the Stars

"And then there were three whereas before there had been four or two And then there were four or two." Thus spake the King. No one dared ask what it meant. He seemed satisfied by the beauty of the logic that had arrived, the royal hall now lightly radiant as he arose from his throne and the world fell away, courtiers, battlements, and clouds, and he rose like a piece of paper on which his effigy had been traced in dotted lines whose dots came loose and flew away to a place in history where nothing mattered. And then there was one.