And now for a story that I'd never, ever heard of until I saw the packaging for this DVD! When the story is done, I'll try to remember to look up information on it, and put it before the story.
So that's what this is. The story of The Zax was originally published in "The Sneetches and Other Stories" in 1961. The other stories in that book, "Too Many Daves" and "What Was I Scared Of?", were not put on Seuss Celebration.
The Cat is walking on the cliff of a purple mountain. He walks to the edge and looks. He sings about how beyond the last mountain, zinica zanica tree, and woomph bush, there's a vaculous, vacant prairie: the prairie of Prax, which is where our story is presumably set.
A Zax is apparently brown and bipedal. It seems closer to humanoid than the Sneetches of the last story. There's a North-Going Zax and a South-Going Zax. You may know what's coming: their paths cause them to collide. Each seems put out that the other is blocking his path, not having the faintest idea that the other is just as compelled as he to travel in a given direction. The North-Going Zax has never sidestepped, and if determined not to, even if he has to stay there for 59 days. The South-Going Zax is willing to one-up him by standing there for 59 years, as he lives by a similar rule. He'll stay there even if the world stands still.
Day passes into night, and day again.
A thunderstorm brews, with wind and lightning. Say, they're the tallest things around... maybe...? Please...? Eh, they just get wet.
When it snows, they stand out in it, their crossed arms and cross heads collecting snow because of their cross-purposes. They get completely buried, after a while.
Spring arrives, and the prairie is lush with grass and flowers, contrasting the barrenness of before. The wonders of nature. A bird flies by and over, but doesn't hit their heads with anything.
Time passes, and... honk...? All kinds of roads have been laid around them. One goes over them, and a sign hangs from it at the point under which they stand: "ZAX ByPass". Wehw, you've got to build bypasses, doncha? It took a couple of years, of course. There are buildings all around, taking advantage of the traffic.
Next time: The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat!
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