THE ZAX
By Dr Seuss

Narrator: One day, making tracks in the prairie of Prax, came a North-Going Zax and a South-Going Zax. And it happened that both of them came to a place where they bumped. There they stood. Foot to foot. Face to face.
North-Going Zax: Look here now!
Narrator: ...the North-Going Zax said.
North-Going Zax: Hey, say! You are blocking my path. You are right in my way. I'm a North-Going Zax and I always go north. Get out of my way, now, and let me go forth!
South-Going Zax: Who's in whose way?
Narrator: ...snapped the South-Going Zax.
South-Going Zax: I always go south, making south-going tracks. So you're in MY way! And I ask you to move and let me go south in my south-going groove.
Narrator: Then, the North-Going Zax said with North-Going pride...
North-Going Zax: I never have taken a step to one side, and I'll prove to you that I won't change my ways if I have to keep standing here 59 days!
South-Going Zax: And I'll prove to *you*...
Narrator: Yelled the South-Going Zax...
South-Going Zax: That I can stand here in the Prairie of Prax for 59 years! For I lived by a rule, that I learned as a boy back in South-Going School, "Never budge." That's my rule. "Never budge in the least. Not an inch to the west, not an inch to the east." I'll stand here not budging. I can, and I will, if it makes you and me and the whole world stand still!
Narrator: Well, of course the world didn't stand still. The world grew. In a couple of years the new highway came through. And they built it right over those two stubborn Zax, and left them there standing, unbudged in their tracks.