Mishka

 *text and translation by Nastassia Aleksiyevich

I saw Mishka on the pizza party, which spontaneously arose in our house. It was one of five possible weekdays, and I, while traveling, did not attach importance to dates, times, and other everyday materialistic things.
 As part of the journey through Lithuania, Italy and Switzerland, Portugal’s Porto city, this time, was my final destination. I stopped at the girl’s Pauline from Poland, who lived and worked in Porto and looked after the house of Rui, the guy who was obsessed with coachsurfing and  who settled in his apartment a myriad of travelers who, free, inexhaustible and happy, took their places on inflatable mattresses, carved out all the flooring of a three-room apartment. And I, of course, was among them. Began my stay in Porto like that.
Arriving at 12 in the night in Porto and having the address of the place, I would hardly have gotten so successfully and quickly, if not for the fellow-Portuguese companions on the plane, who, chatting incessantly and finding out where I was going, kindly agreed to give me a lift to the apartment.
I rang the doorbell, and I was opened by a guy to whom I explained that came to Pauline. Entering the apartment, I was shocked by the view of these inflatable mattresses, which covered the floor, and on which people slept.
The guy showed me a wardrobe with linen and a free mattress. In my room there were two guys playing guitar. It was Stefano from Italy and Carlos from Colombia. After talking with them, I went to the balcony, stepping over the guy who turned out to be Dan from New Zealand in the morning.
For the first time, I quietly breathed the air of Portugal on this cozy balcony with a bag chair, an ashtray and someone's 99-cent bottle of wine.
That night I slept like a baby, without dreams, conscious and unconscious, although this night marked the beginning of the termination of a cycle of extremely frequent lucid dreams, full of power and control, long, though gray, not colorful, which made me extremely upset during the last month. I thought that I lacked something (but not strength, because my lucid dreams were full of control) for the dreams to be colorful, enthralling. I could not meet people whom I had planned to meet inside the lucid dream. I could not go where I wanted. Perhaps it is for the better that these long and useless lucid dreams have stopped.
I liked life in Porto. The whole city was built on two sides of a large river, which flowed into the ocean. There were hills along its banks on which pretty houses with orange roofs were located; About 8 huge bridges with hard traffic were built across the river. The city was crowded, bright. In the old town, old Lutheran churches stand alone. And of course, the reason for which I rode here ... The cold powerful Atlantic Ocean. Many times I tried to go into it, but as soon as the ice burned my ankles, I was leaving the ocean, despite the unreal heat of June. In fact, it is just scary to go into the ocean: the waves fell on the shore, coastal rocks with incredible strength, filling the space around with a rich halo of small splashes under which you can cool red-hot skin.
This ocean is not for banal tourist using it for bathing. It is for contemplation. For absorbing its energy. For meditation on its shore. For long walks under his splashes and hum.
On the first day of my stay in Porto me with the guys moved to the surfer beach on foot. There were very interesting personalities among us. Magdalena and her mother are pilgrims who have just returned from pilgrimages living in some other city in Portugal, looking after someone's home on the application on the TrustedHoussitters website, where they moved from Poland after mother retired and after Magda got tired of 10-years working as a journalist in Bristol. Also there was a guy from Germany among us who decided to travel for half a year before starting work after the graduation. He was telling crazy stories about life in various communities, tent cities, farm work. He managed to spend 1-2 euros per day. By the way, it is quite real, at least in Porto. Someone always cooked the food in our house, the water was also in drinking fountains and in the house. There was also a guy from New Zealand, Dan. He was a vegan constantly crunched unwashed carrots with great pleasure on his face. Dan did not smoke, did not drink alcohol, did not eat meat, was engaged in transcendental meditation and walked barefoot, which was explained by the fact that he was comfortable so and that he was used to do so in New Zealand. All the same, but only in shoes did Magda. And her mother discovered the ability to heal with her hands, which I heard from her when I was reading her hands telling the fortune. She did not speak English, Spanish or Portuguese, understood only Russian from the variety of languages around us, so I spoke Russian to her. In turn, I understood Polish. So we communicated. I told the guys about the art of lucid dreaming, and they told me about life in other countries, traveling, the art of meditation and strength of will; we discussed life planning and the power of intention, how to find out what the goal of life is and how to find harmony, happiness, peace of mind, without losing the passion and interest in life.
I saw the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. Its imperative power, absolute purity and freshness left us discouraged, to stand in a silent ecstatic daze.
I walked along the shore, covering my legs with ice waves and taking pictures, trying to capture at least some beauty, Nick ate fruit in the shade, Magda’s mother sunbathed in the scorching sun, and immediately fell asleep, Magda tried to do yogoo -capoeira, fighting the wind that immediately forced her to lose balance every time she got into some unstable position on one leg or arms, Dan sat in meditation, having previously turned on calm Australian music like country music on a small column ...
***
I got home from the beach, Nick and Dan started making pizza. The guys returning home, connected to the process. We had a lot of pizza basics, we made various fillings, vegetarian and not, and while they were baked, we were sitting on our sacred balcony with wine. During the evening, a lot of travelers arrived at the house, we gladly met them and tried to find a place to sleep. That evening the number of people reached twenty. Among them was Mishka. It was a friend of Nick, who had been  living in Porto for about six months. Nick invited him to visit at any time, and here he came.
Mishka was a tall and extremely thin boy of 23 years. In general, it turned out strange that very many of our company were 23, including me.
He left Hungary to see the world. Here he lived in an abandoned church, bathed in the river and earned his living by street performances, which, by the way, he did not do very well, as a result he earned only a few euros a day. This allowed him to eat rotten fruit and a slice of pie for lunch. He spoke English very well.
It remains a mystery to me whether his name is a diminutive Russian name, or whether Hungary has its own such name.
We were joined on the balcony by Marcello, a bright young man from Brazil, who, due to his semi-annual life in the States, spoke excellent English with a fashionable American accent. Marcello traveled non-stop, finding mainly farm work in various countries.
Mishka timidly asked to take a shower - it made us laugh. It seems that being in an apartment was for him something unusual and frightening, like an apartment frightens a homeless cat.
***
Returning from the beach a day later, I met Mishka, walking from the side of our house. He was in huge cotton shorts, not concealing his excessive thinness, and a straw hat with a green feather sticking out of it. He smiled a white-toothed smile, and his young face was radiant with joy and carelessness. We exchanged a couple of phrases, after which he invited me to the Full Moon Party on the same night, in his house - an abandoned church. I was inspired and changed my plans for the evening: to sit on a stone wall and watch the full moon rise.
***
Full moon - time of magic

We went to a vegetarian cafe in which Paulina worked. While waiting for the end of her shift, we ate great food and drank Portuguese port wine, which made me incredibly fun and free. Marcello and I danced with pareos, which were taken by the guys somewhere to use as costumes at the Full Moon Party. They were all the same, only in different colors, with bells. Dan played the guitar, which was also available in the cafe, he and Magda sat on the old rustic couch, she played along with him on an African drum that a friend sent to her especially for pilgrimage with her mom. It was a great companion on their way. They walked all day long and sang, sometimes they stopped at the curb and made tea.
Nick and I went ahead with Carlos. In a crowd of people, we met a girl - a friend of Nick and Dan. She was with them at the Rainbow Festival. She went with us to Mishka. On the way, she told how she lives in Porto. She was also a vagabond, but she found a job here at the hotel reception. She was provided with housing there, but they paid almost nothing. She was happy that she was hired for this job. When she wanted to eat, she asked people to buy her food. Nothing, just food. She looked happy. Her eyes glowed, just like Mishka’s.
At the church we saw a fire. There was Mishka. Skinny happy guy in those strange shorts. He greeted us with joy, as if we were the most welcome guests. His white teeth glowed in the dark.
Around the campfire, young guys in witch hats, looking like vagrants, danced to psy-trance. It was really similar to the Sabbath. The full moon hung right above our little holiday, proudly watching the action dedicated to it.
I was just an observer ... I did not belong their world, but I was happy that they let me in.
I left before the others. Going home across a huge bridge at three in the morning, alone, somewhere in another country, in a faraway world, I did not feel either fear or anxiety. Only existential catharsis.
I looked at the tile under my feet, intertwined in cunning patterns, when deja vu flooded me, a childhood memory, a childhood dream ... How could I ever forget? .. How did I live all these years, leave it? ..
Little, I could spend hours dreaming about how to leave the town. I just repeated it in my head: I will leave the town. I would have a skateboard, a guitar, a backpack, perhaps an animal (a cat or a dog — I don't remember). I would travel around cities, I would play songs in the streets to earn money for food. I would go away to the southwest. The setting sun would shine in my face. It would be the happiest moments of my life.
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