He saw an idiot in a yard in a leather harness chained to a clothesline and it leaned and swayed drooling and looked out upon the alley with eyes that fed the most rudimentary brain and yet seemed possessed of news in the universe denied right forms, like perhaps the eyes of squid whose simian depths seem to harbor some horrible intelligence. All down past the hedges a gibbering and howling in a hoarse frog's voice, word perhaps of things known raw, unshaped by the constructions of a mind obsessed with form.
by Cormac McCarthy
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The passage describes a striking image of an individual in a vulnerable state, depicted as "an idiot" in a leather harness, chained and swaying while drooling. This person gazes out into the alley, presenting a sense of connection to larger, possibly cosmic truths despite their apparent mental limitations. The comparison to squids suggests a hidden depth of understanding, hinting at an intelligence that defies conventional categorization.

The surrounding sounds of gibbering and howling add to the chaotic atmosphere, representing raw, unfiltered knowledge that exists outside the bounds of organized thought. It reflects a kind of primal understanding that is not shaped by societal or intellectual confines, emphasizing the struggle between human cognition and the deeper, perhaps darker, truths of existence.

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