“Miracle is always preceded by horror.”
— Geydar Dzhemal, Orientation North

First published: 04.09.2025

Lintara

Authorship

The triad “horror → miracle → laughter” was first articulated by Heydar Jemal (Orientation North, chapter “Miracle”).
This text stands on his thought but does not repeat it.
Here I gather my own cycle: Witness → Horror → Miracle → Laughter.
This is not philosophy or theory. It is a bodily experience, lived and named anew.

This is the first part of the miracle trilogy.

Today I am giving only a breath: Witness. Horror. Miracle. Laughter.

Then there will be an analysis. Then there’s the library.

But there is always one entrance: a body that can no longer live in the old way.

Horror. Miracle. Laughter. — Trilogy

Part 1: Horror. Miracle. Laughter.
Part 2: The Library That Lives Without an Author
Part 3: The Entry

Three texts, not articles: entry, space, and core.
An invitation into a space where the miracle becomes a bodily event.

Warning

This is not light reading.
This article will not “brighten your day” or give you “a fresh idea.”
It will shift your perception, tear the film, and leave you face to face with what you usually hide.
Whoever reaches the end will not come out the same.

Recommended: start the track below while reading. It is part of the rhythm of this text.

Witness

“And We made you witnesses over mankind…”
— Qur’an 2:143

“For this cause I came into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.”
— John 18:37

He enters — and the air changes.
He says nothing. He makes no unnecessary move. He just stands, and suddenly everything in the room becomes a measure.

The Witness always arrives like this.
No facts, no banners.
He does not persuade, beg, or prove.
He simply is — and that is enough for the room to split open.

You sit beside him — and suddenly your body is no longer yours.
You don’t breathe — you take an exam with your breathing.
You don’t look — you endure the gaze.
You don’t fall silent — even your silence is graded.

He does nothing. He only stands.
But his presence turns your laughter into an attempt “to look alive,”
your words into “better / worse,”
your movements into “convincing / unconvincing.”

The Witness does not let you disappear.
He drags you back to the body — not as a refuge, but as a wound.
And in that wound you hear: your breath hasn’t belonged to you for a long time.

He says nothing.
And yet you already cannot live the old way.

Horror

“The room was seized with horror.”
— Vladimir Mayakovsky, Flute-Spine

“Woe is me, for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips…”
— Isaiah 6:5

Sometimes the body knows before the mind.
The room is still quiet, no one has spoken a word, but inside, the tremor has already begun.
You sit — and suddenly your breath stumbles.
Your chest won’t obey, your shoulders harden, your fingers freeze.

This is horror.

Not fear with a name.
But emptiness without language.
You only feel: the world is about to tear, and you will tear with it.

It comes like an alarm without smoke.
The siren screams, but you see no fire.
At first you think: “a glitch.”
A moment later: no, this is real, only the mind hasn’t caught up.

Horror is the herald of miracle.
But in the moment, it feels like the end.
It’s like a dark room where someone already stands, but you don’t see him yet.
It’s like the breath before a scream, when the whole body is tense, but the sound has not yet burst out.

In the crowd horror becomes visible.
You see them exhale another’s life in order to prolong their own.
Relief — “not me, not yet.”
And in that “not me” our hell begins.

Miracle

“Miracle is always preceded by horror.”
— Geydar Dzhemal, Orientation North

“She looked at him, heaved a heavy sigh,
could not bear the wonder — and died on her way to mass.”
— Alexander Pushkin

Horror tears, but does not kill.
It opens a hole, and into it falls what you called yourself.
The part of you that “must remember” dies.
And the new one — does not yet know it is alive.

That is why miracle is never remembered.
You can recall the foreshadow — the trembling, the cold, the lowered gaze.
You can recall the laughter after.
But the moment itself — is empty.
Memory does not catch it, because the one who could remember stayed on the other side.

Miracle is not enlightenment, not an answer.
It is rupture.
The ruler breaks.
The table disappears.
You remain with no measure, no exam, no verdict.

And suddenly air becomes air again.
Not “better,” not “worse,” but simply — air.
For the first time, your breath belongs to no one.

Miracle is quiet.
No trumpets.
Only a hole in the wall, pouring night.
And you are not afraid of the dark.

Miracle is the instant when the need to prove your existence vanishes.
You simply are.
And no one keeps score.

Laughter

“Horror, miracle, and laughter — man carries this triad inside himself like breath.”
— Geydar Dzhemal

“To laugh is not to be afraid of being alive.”
— Nietzsche

Miracle is too heavy.
Unbearable in its pure form.
If it remained naked, half of us would die from its weight.

So the world dresses it in farce.
The alarm screams — and there is no smoke.
Students laugh, filming on their phones.
You stand in a bathrobe, the wind throwing it open like in a bad comedy.
And that ridiculousness saves you.

Laughter does not cheapen. It seals.
It translates the unbearable into bearable.
That which could drive you mad becomes a story you can tell.

It is not mockery.
It is breath returning.
If miracle remained only as rupture, your lungs would collapse.
Laughter makes miracle livable.

Dzhemal put it simply: horror → miracle → laughter.
This is the law of breathing.
Inhale — horror.
Hold — miracle.
Exhale — laughter.

The Harlequin always stands nearby.
He pretends it is a spectacle.
And by that pretense, life becomes possible.

Ending

Miracle cannot be explained.
It can only be endured.
And then — laughed.

Afterword

There are times when another person’s words don’t just address you—they recognize you. They come not to teach, but to awaken in you something that you already knew, something hidden, waiting, longing to be remembered.

A month ago she wrote:

“Presence always caused unease. It should not need to explain anything. It simply appears, and in doing so it disturbs everything that depends on lies for survival… Silence was heavy, it was the cage I lived in. But silence has another side. Silence is also strength. Now I know my silence was never emptiness. It was the presence of something deeper, waiting for its hour.”
— Post on Substack

Отклик читателя: « Размышления о вечной мерзлоте»

*“Спасибо, что поделились этим. Что меня действительно впечатлило, так это то, как вы заставили меня прочувствовать этот цикл, а не просто объяснили его. Свидетель, ужас, чудо, смех — всё это ощущается как нечто, что проходит через тело, прежде чем разум успевает осознать.

Особенно меня поразила часть «Свидетель». Это ощущение присутствия, из-за которого даже тишина или дыхание кажутся чем-то явным и значимым. Это было по-настоящему заряжено энергией.

Мне также понравилось, как вы относитесь к смеху. Не как к чему-то, что обесценивает чудо, а как к тому, что делает его терпимым. Смех становится разрядкой, которая помогает вам выжить после разрыва. Абсурд — это реакция на настолько глубокое знание, что оно разрушает структуру. И познать его можно только на собственном опыте.

Это работает, потому что вы сохраняете интригу. Вы не подводите читателя к однозначному выводу, а оставляете его в напряжении. Мне не терпится увидеть, как вы построите следующие части трилогии.”*
— Размышления о вечной мерзлоте

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