Billy has a giant eyeball; it follows him everywhere he goes.

Now Billy didn't just come across this eyeball one day and adopt it, as one might an abandoned kitten. No, what happened is this:

Billy awoke one fine morning in Autumn, sunlight casting a deep V on the wall next to his bed. Unfortunately Billy couldn't see this because sometime during the night a giant eyeball had, for reasons unknown, elected to float above his sleeping form. About four inches from his nose to be exact.

Billy screamed. Time passed. Billy screamed some more. Eventually he realised that this strange ocular occurrence didn't seem to be harbouring any kind of malice towards him. It just floated there, bobbing ever so slightly in an imaginary breeze. Billy edged himself to the side of the bed, not daring to sit up for fear of getting a faceful of eye. He placed one foot at a time on the floor, then swung himself upwards slowly. The eye seemed to keep the distance between itself and Billy the same no matter how Billy moved. Billy stood up, and the eye drifted and bobbed gently in front of him.

At this point a problem presented itself to Billy's mind. The eye was so big that our hero was unable to see around it. How was Billy supposed to get himself dressed, how was he even supposed to be able to carry out his duties as poster boy for the Nelson's Wellingtons Ltd? This was certainly quite a to-do.

Billy called the office, and putting on his best croaky voice, told them he was ill and wouldn't be able to come in that day. He didn't dare tell them about the eyeball.

Billy resolved to get rid of the eyeball by fair means or foul. But first he had to come up with some sort of plan. And to come up with a plan he would first have to assess the situation more clearly.

He began a fairly unscientific study of the eyeball. Examining it with an elaborate set-up of mirrors to see exactly what it looked like from all sides. He discovered that it was an eyeball. Yes, I know this has been stated a few times, but Billy himself wasn't all that sure what it was in the beginning. As close as it was and as large as it was, all he could see was a large black pupil.

Using the mirrors, Billy could see that the eyeball wasn't attached to anything. It didn't seem to have any way of staying in the air, or controlling its movements. It didn't seem to have an eyelid either. It was just a very, very big eyeball, which floated.

Tentatively, Billy reached up and touched the eye. It felt like any normal eye, slightly wet and squooshy to the touch, but it didn't flinch or move as he expected it to. In fact, when he attempted a push, the eye didn't move at all, and no matter how hard he pushed the eye stayed in exactly the same place.

Next he attempted to engage the eye in conversation. This experiment didn't last particularly long as, not having a mouth, the eye was unable to respond, even if it could hear, or even think.

But now how to get rid of this optical menace?

Billy tried everything he could think of, even closing a door between himself and the eye. This seemed to work at first, but upon turning he discovered that the eye had somewhat sneakily appeared behind him and was just waiting for him. Billy screamed again, this time in frustration. Nothing seemed to work. Billy resigned himself to being closely examined for the rest of his life.

The days passed slowly, Billy didn't leave the small flat where he lived alone. After a week or so a letter arrived from Nelson's Wellingtons Ltd., informing Billy that the position as poster boy was no longer his. Gross dereliction of duty, they said. Billy felt nothing; he had other things to worry about, such as how to go to the toilet without being watched.

Hunger eventually drove him out onto the street. To prevent accidents, such as the possibility of being run over, Billy took with him a small hand mirror, which he held to one side of him as he walked. His eyes locked to a lateral extremity, able to see where he was going by looking around the eye using the mirror.

This produced a lot of strange looks from the people Billy passed in the street, but strangely not one of them looked at the eye. They would first look at Billy, then the mirror, then back at Billy again. Then they would cross the road.

Perhaps a Doctor could help, thought Billy. And so on his way back from the supermarket (and what an embarrassing situation THAT was) he made his way to his local General Practitioner. The receptionist looked at him with an uneasy expression when he asked to see the Doctor, but she gave him an appointment pretty quickly. No doubt wanting him out of her waiting room as soon as possible.

'I'm sorry,' said Billy reassuringly. 'It's the big eye. I can't get rid of it.'

'What big eye?' said the receptionist, none too sure she should be having this sort of conversation with a stranger, and my, that hand mirror could do some damage in the crazed paws of a lunatic such as this.

'What seems to be the problem?' the Doctor asked as Billy shuffled sideways into the room and directed himself to a chair with the use of the hand mirror.

'Well, Doctor, it's this giant eye, you see. It won't leave me alone.'

'Eye, you say? It doesn't look too inflamed to me.'

'No, Doctor, not MY eye. This one.' Billy said, gesturing to a point roughly four inches in front of his nose.

The Doctor rose from his chair, his face expressionless, moving around his desk to the chair where Billy sat. He leaned down, examining the space in front of Billy's nose very carefully, then slowly moved around Billy in a clockwise manner, keeping a close focus on Billy the entire time. Finally he returned to his side of the desk and sat back down.

'Mr Kripes,' he began after a thoughtful silence, 'I'm afraid I see no eye, large or otherwise, except for your own.' He wrote something on a pad. Billy could see him doing it but couldn't read what it said because the mirror reversed the text.

Billy left the office, the eye still there, dejected and with a besmirched medical record.

But on the way home Billy saw a very strange sight. With his trusty hand mirror he saw someone coming towards him. Now this usually wouldn't be a very strange thing except for the fact that he couldn't see what this person looked like because, get this, they had a giant eyeball bobbing along in front of them, too! They too were using a hand mirror.

'Blimey,' exclaimed Billy.

'No, Blimie, with an I-E. Mildred Blimie to be exact. Please excuse the giant eye,' said Mildred Blimie.

'Billy Kripes. Likewise,' said Billy Kripes. They shook hands, which rattled somewhat because of the mirrors.

But then a most unusual thing began to happen, the two giant eyeballs began to turn as if, as if sensing the presence of one another. And they started to slowly drift together. Closer and closer, until they were touching.

Billy and Mildred watched, amazed, as the eyeballs rose into the sky in an elaborate mating dance. Twisting and tumbling around one another, until they disappeared out of sight.

Billy looked at Mildred. Mildred looked at Billy.

'Aren't you the bloke with the wellies?' Mildred asked.

'Not any more,' said Billy, as Mildred took his hand.