The last encounter with one of Bent’s fun personalities happened just a week before my moving out. I had come home in the evening and went into the kitchen. That’s when I heard Bent shuffling about in his room and breathing heavily. Then I heard him hastily putting his clothes on, which meant he was about to come out for one of our friendly chats. I thought: “Fuck, am I really going to die one short week before finally breaking free?!”.

Bent went into the kitchen and gave me one of his famous wordless stares. This could mean any number of things, ranging from “I want to see whether your lifeless body makes for a good voodoo doll” all the way to “inner werewolf tells me it’s feeding time”. After the mandatory stare-down entrance, Bent asked me a question:

“Tell me, isn’t it economics that you’re studying?”

I attempted to clarify that it had been “marketing”, and not “economics”. Because why not argue with a guy who wants nothing more than to turn you into a human-sized clothes hanger. I got as far as “Mar…” when Bent, in his usual calm manner, screamed at the top of his lungs:

“Then tell me what happens when you leave the window open and it’s winter outside?!”

Not sure…evil frost fairies fly inside the apartment seeking to feed on the souls of the innocent and children’s screams? The window acts as a portal for summoning the Dark Lord and his minions into our dimension? Was this a trick question? Could it only be answered by economics students, because they’re the only ones apart from deranged people who could see into the parallel universe? Where was this going?

Assuming that Bent was upset that my open window had cost him extra in heating bills (baaam – economics skills to the rescue!), I was about to tell him that I’d happily cover this, if only to avoid being in his presence for more than it takes for him to strangle a human being. Bent wasn’t interested in hearing humans talk and continued with:

“Well as a mechanical engineer I can tell you that the biggest heat loss is through an open window!”

I hadn’t been aware that one required a mechanical engineering degree to figure out something as basic as “wall is a better heat insulator than nothing at all”. I imagine the university where Bent studied had complex diagrams like this:

“See kids – the air is red because it’s the colour of hot!”

I told Bent that he was welcome to subtract the heating costs from my deposit. This way Bent couldn’t do anything to me because “necromancer’s honour code” didn’t allow him to kill prey that wasn’t arguing. Check and mate! Another incident was successfully avoided.

I had moved to a new place one week later and turned a new leaf. Bent carried on living in his apartment, crazy and naked. Everyone lived happily ever after, until the day I dropped by to do the mandatory “room check” in order to get my deposit back. Bent and I inspected the room together and established it was in the same condition as when I had moved in, which meant I got my deposit back in full (minus the fee for letting in those frost fairies). As I was leaving the haunted apartment for the last time, Bent looked at me and (I swear!) said this:

“Well Daniel, if you ever need help with anything at all, you know you can always contact me!”

…what?! This was almost more disturbing than his by now familiar crazy moods. After having forced me to move out due to his psycho behaviour Bent, in all fucking seriousness, was acting like we were the best of friends. Because nothing brings people closer together than one of them having been on the verge of murdering the other.

There’s not a chance in the world I will ever turn to Bent for help. I am more likely to ask Pia Kjærsgaard to have a house party in her apartment to celebrate me becoming a Danish citizen (obscure reference to Danish politics, nice).

Besides, what can Bent possibly help me with?! I don’t need to learn how to arrange dead birds and squirrels into life-sized sculptures of Satan. I am not the Mafia, so I won’t need his help in making my enemies “disappear”…

…Although, now that I think of it – hey Bent, got any energy-saving light bulbs I can borrow?