The torches burned long into the night in the banquet hall. Their flickering light cast grotesque shadows across the huge table. Most of the seated revelers were slumped in their places sleeping off the effects of food and grog. There were a few murmured conversations, occasional outbursts of ribald laughter. Few but the king noticed when a tiny sparrow flew in the open window, pecked at a table scrap, circled the hall several times, then winged through another open window into the remaining night. The medieval king rose, and to no one in particular, began to muse, "Our lives are like that lost sparrow. We come from the darkness of who knows where, flit through the lighted banquet hall of life snatching at morsels, then we fly out the window of death to who knows where! Who can tell me mor…