rewriting PHP to HTML

[carbonspace]

I need a push to get this type of URL rewritten:
/index.php
/index.php?st=x
/index.php?st=x&ct=y
/index.php?st=x&ct=y&id=z

I want it displayed in the address bar as
/index.html
/index.html/x
/index.html/x/y
/index.html/x/y/z

I'm reviewing the mod-rewrite docs and trying to make sense of it all but certain thing dont do anything and others give me a 404.

Do I have this backwards or what?

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^/(.)$ ?state=$1
RewriteRule ^\/(.)\/(.*)$ ?state=$1&city=$2

[zingbats]

It is impossible to do.

The ONLY time they have index.html/x/y/ is because they've made a folder called index.html

I spent many hours on this as well!