Local Poetrician Gives Hope to Broken Words

Supporting the head of a limp, whimpering fragment a gangly man painstakingly stitches several letters onto the ruddy tail parts of a frightened dangling participle. Though he hasn't eaten for hours JE Paddock, self-described poetrician works with extreme precision as he loops the delicate thread in, over, and around its injured rump.

"This poor guy must've had an encounter with a runaway conjunction", Paddock says as he ties off the final knot. "I know it looks gruesome, but he should be alright after some sleep and a few interjections of liquefied dinosaur eggs. This sort of thing is happening more and more as apostrophes and semi-colons have invaded fragment territory."

Fortunately for this particular fragment, a concerned pronoun had rushed this bundle of mangled, commatose suffix into "Doctor" Paddock's clinic, just blocks away from the esteemed Acoustical Frog Emporium. Though his practice is highly controversial and involves large quantities of unapproved medicines, Paddock claims that he's saved the lives of many letters, words, and fragments over the years.

"Yes, I'm confident that I'm performing an invaluable public service here", Paddock claims. "Whether it's a wormy pile of unformed letter chunks or awkwardly worded run-on sentences, I take 'em all. Once the school year ends, you wouldn't believe all the SAT words I get that are thoroughly abandoned and forgotten. It really is a pity, but trying to get people to realize the value of words and proper punctuation is extremely difficult."

No stranger to harsh criticism or frequent litigation, Paddock seems oddly unconcerned. "I don't want to spill any secrets here, but let's just say I've possibly helped a few...friends...with their letter problems. Having friends in high places---speaking theoretically, of course, makes my life a whole lot easier", he says, wiping a drop of verbiage plasma from the suspender buckle of his lab coat.

On the verge of having his 500 square foot office expanded to cover an entire city block, "Doctor" Paddock explains, "Hey, there's a lot of unmet word need out there. Mass grammatical indifference is my greatest enemy, but I'm up to the task. It's a thankless job, but somebody's gotta do it! This expansion will enable us to service the entire city, 24 hours a day. Bring your nouns, bring your verbs, even your sickly syllables. We're here to help you!".