wuthering bites

There seems to be a hippy on the sofa. Definitely of the species amicus sordida. As to which breed, he looks like a genuine neo-hippy. Amicus sordida skip-divicus perhaps. A bender building camp food cycling fan of alfalfa. An inordinately lanky Jeff Goldblum with dreadlocks. Slow stoner drawl and pervasive detachment from most conversation and other signs of reality. In a nice way. He looks at me blankly when I ask a simple question, perhaps because I don't use the verbal equivalent of a full stop- "maaan", to indicate that I have finished speaking and that it is his turn to talk. When I make a joke he doesn't laugh. He's spent too long considering climate change to remember how to respond when someone makes a joke. His default action is to look a little blank and wonder whether to do a stock take on his beans and pulses. He is, however, a carnivore. He blames this is on a limited diet caused by allergies... to me this also impedes and throws into question his hippy status. I don’t hold it against him but note it mentally for future examination. He arrived in the night out of a black cab, singing (slash, loudly mumbling) a sort of intrusive and discordant lorelei underneath my window while the meter of the cab kept ticking, that went: ‘Baaarrnnabeee, Baaarrnnabeee.’ Barred from the house by several locks and bolts he tapped at the door, calling the name again and again, like the ghost scratching at the window in Wuthering Heights, while I tried to find the keys to let him in. Like that. Just like that but less romantic, less Northern and with more disposable income, more weed and more expensive looking luggage for an uninvited guest-ghost. I didn’t know he was coming. He doesn’t know who I am but his credentials seem plausible enough. ‘I should have been here five days ago,’ he explains. Meh. A man who bangs at my door in the middle of the night to attack me probably wouldn’t let me know if he had meant to be here five days before, so I let him in. Who knows how long he’ll be here. When he vanishes, a week later, he leaves behind him a large unopened packet of bacon rashers: the best kind of hippy leaving gift.