I woke to the sound of birds chirping outside my window. I cursed them aloud and tried to sleep again. But the incessant "Cheep cheep, cheep cheep" prevented me from keeping my eyes closed for more than a few seconds. Not for the first time, I wondered why everyone loves the sound of birds in the morning - I can't stand it.

Looking at the yellow of my walls triggered a memory of last night... Mr. Smiley. Mr. Smiley had come alive! He had threatened to take over the world.

A lesser human may have found the idea ludicrous, and put it all down to some strange and obscure dream. But I had watched enough films to know that these things are never dreams. I cautiously peered outside my window. I don't really know what I expected to see, but I certainly did not expect the sight that greeted my tired eyes.

A gigantic yellow sphere lay in my garden. Even as I stared, it slowly began to revolve, revealing a huge pair of shades and a twisted, toothless grin.

"What the...?" I whispered.

"Thought you were dreaming, did you? Heh. To account for my apparent increase in size, it is - once again - the fault of Windows. I shall not bore you with technical details, but they basically messed up when working out the 'real-life' size of one pixel. This is generally not a problem, since it's not exactly the norm for pixelated images to magically come to life," he cackled. Once again, I wondered at the liquid-smooth voice. The words seemed to flow from his very being like a river.

"Well, I always knew there was something a bit 'off' about Bill Gates. I tried to tell everyone in my Peter Andre conspiracy theory, but they were having none of it."

Either Mr. Smiley did not hear me, or he had no wish to engage in casual conversation with someone like myself. Whatever the reason, he revolved once more, and bounced over my garden fence. Soon, he was rolling down the road towards Mingwall town centre.

"MR. SMILEY! COME BACK!" I yelled.

Realising Mr. Smiley was not listening, I leaped from my bedroom window, rolled down to the bottom of my garden, hopped over the fence and sped down the road after the giant sphere. After I had run for several hundred metres, I realised I was still wearing my pyjamas. The only thing that would suitably describe how I felt right then is:

"D'OH"

But I knew there was no time to get changed. Mr. Smiley was out to destroy the world. Alright, so he seemed like a decent enough smiley, but there was no way I was letting him destroy this planet. But there was also no way I could stop him on my own. He was absolutely gigantic, and he'd be sure to crush me if I even tried. So who could I enlist to help me? The one who was the cause of this madness: Bill Gates.

I ran for the telephone box, not even sure what number I was going to phone when I got there. As I reached for the receiver, the phone began ringing. Confused, I lifted it up to my ear and listened.

"Hello... Erin..." a sinister voice whispered down the phone lines.

"And you are...?" I asked, more than a hint of impatience in my voice.

"Bill Gates."

"Makes sense. Right, so Mr. Smiley from Minesweeper is here and he wants to destroy the world. It might be a good idea for you to give up on trying to actually make a Windows OS that works properly and come over here and help me out!"

The phone went dead.

As I grumbled to myself about the uselessness of Bill Gates and Microsoft in general, a figure emerged from the shadows. The thing was twisted and terribly skinny. As it came into the light, I recognised who it was...

Bill Gates.