Did you ever read The Zax by Dr. Seuss as a kid? It is about two creatures called Zax who only go north and south. They meet in some plain and because neither one would move they stay there forever.

My mom read that story to me and I’ve loved it ever since, when I was little I didn’t know why but now… You can call me The East Going Zax.

I haven’t met a West Going Zax yet, so I walk. East, always east. I never budge, not even an inch, I just go east. People told me that in that story the Zax aren’t good guys. People said the story is supposed to be about how bad it is to be stubborn.

I don’t know maybe that is the point of the story, I am not terribly smart. But I always thought that eventually the two of them began talking. In the end, I thought, they stayed there not because they were stubborn but because they were friends.

I met a man going west once. We stopped, foot to foot, face to face. But he wasn’t a Zax. He snarled and turned north, he went around me. I went east.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if we had stayed there. Me and him, would we have talked would we have become friends? I don’t know.

I’m in the desert right now. Behind me are my east going tracks stretching off to the west. I wonder if I will reach the ocean soon? I saw the ocean once before, when me and my mom flew out here. I was young then back then I wasn’t a Zax.

A young kid looking out the window at the clouds. A kid so scared by the in flight movie my mom made them turn it off. Was that me? After all they took away from me was I me? I am not sure anymore. If that was not me then what happened to that little kid? Where did he go? Maybe he is headed west. Heh I sound insane. Maybe I am, I don’t know anymore, I don’t know.

I am standing here, by a tree, I can’t go east because of this tree. I’m not sad though, or angry, now I get to rest. I have been walking, or running since I escaped. When was that? Weeks ago at least, probably a month, it is strange, not eating or sleeping. I’m not human anymore, I’m a Zax. They did this to me, am I happy? I don’t know.