Natalie 2

Taken down, have some Lovecraft instead

IThreading now the low phosphorescent aisles between those gigantic trunks,
Carter made fluttering sounds in the manner of the Zoogs, and listened now and
then for responses. He remembered one particular village of the creatures was in
the centre of the wood, where a circle of great mossy stones in what was once a
cleaning tells of older and more terrible dwellers long forgotten, and toward
this spot he hastened. He traced his way by the grotesque fungi, which always
seem better nourished as one approaches the dread circle where elder beings
danced and sacrificed. Finally the great light of those thicker fungi revealed a
sinister green and grey vastness pushing up through the roof of the forest and
out of sight. This was the nearest of the great ring of stones, and Carter knew
he was close to the Zoog village. Renewing his fluttering sound, he waited
patiently; and was at last rewarded by an impression of many eyes watching him.
It was the Zoogs, for one sees their weird eyes long before one can discern
their small, slippery brown outlines.
Out they swarmed, from hidden burrow and honeycombed tree, till the whole
dim-litten region was alive with them. Some of the wilder ones brushed Carter
unpleasantly, and one even nipped loathsomely at his ear; but these lawless
spirits were soon restrained by their elders.

Today Natalie should have come to work, but didn’t show up, and doesn’t pick up her phone.

That last phrase needs rewording. "She should've come to work...and doesn't pick up her phone." It just doesn't read quite right.

Anton’s stomach immediately wrapped itself into a small tight knot

The "immediately" there adds a sense of literalness to the sentence, which makes it weird. Also, so does the "small tight" part of the knot. It's so explicit that the reader thinks his stomach is physically moving and tying itself. I think it could be shortened to "Anton's stomach tightened into a knot" or something similar.

thought Anton, remembering Jane’s demise.

I hope Jane was someone Anton didn't like, because "demise" has a rather cold, antagonistic tone to it.

Anton stood up in agitation.

How does one stand up in agitation? Reword.

A quick succession of nightmare scenarios galloped through his head, before he managed to shut them out with an effort of will.

Lose the "...with an effort of will." What else would he shut out nightmares with? A punch to the face? It's obvious that he does so mentally.

he could hear the faraway murmur of a switched on TV

More instances in which I ask, as a critic, what made you feel the need to insert the words "switched on"? Can you hear a TV that's off? When you go out of your way to say something, the reader can't help but wonder why.

“It’s me, Anton, Natalie, open up, it’s me, dad!”

So are they on a first name basis or on a "Dad" basis? Also, when "Dad" is used as a proper noun (as opposed to "your dad" or "my dad"), then it's capitalized.

He heard locks unlocking and latches being unlatched

For parallelism's sake, "He heard the locks unlocking and latches unlatching" or "He heard the locks being unlocked and the latches being unlatched." Or just change it completely because it already looks a little weird in any form.

"I’m sorry you were bothered dad,"

Proper noun, capitalize "Dad." Add a comma, too. "I'm sorry you were bothered, Dad."

“So what happened?” he said, “why didn’t you go to work?

"So what happened?" he said. (Notice period) "Why didn't you go to work?"

Anton suppressed him smile of affection

"his smile"

He leaned towards her, propping an elbow on the table, “and I think...

Capitalize "And"

"and I think I can tell you why you didn’t go to work today. You stayed at home, because you couldn’t take the pressure of the outside world. You have gone to pieces, you have no strength left, no defenses, and you simply can’t handle going out through that door.”

This guy reads like a jerk. Is he supposed to be? He's suddenly all-knowing, telling her what to do with such finality, and not using contractions enough. If I were her, I would think he's a jerk.

He underlined everything he said with small thumps of index and forefinger on the edge of the table, except the door, which he indicated with an incline of his head and a swerving of his eyes.

The index and forefinger are the same finger. The whole "except the door, which he indicated..." part reads really silly and wordy.

A board loose in the fence of denial.

The fence of denial. Pretty weak metaphor.

“And since you can’t go through that door, and since you are days or maybe hours away from being in a hospital, I, as your father,” he illustrated himself with a thumb, “am taking you,” a forefinger quickly stabbed into her direction, “for two-three days out in the open. Somewhere out of town.”

All this hand gesture business is getting out of hand (so to speak).

the thin wretch that was his child.

Okay, now I know he's a jerk, calling his daughter a "thin wretch." I sure hope he's supposed to be a jerk. Unless it's you, the author, calling her a thin wretch.

“Forget the elections for now. What do you think? That you will stay at home today, and tomorrow will be magically better?” His daughter was on the verge of tears, but he knew that he shouldn’t let up. “Even if you do accumulate a minimum of strength in the night and do force yourself tomorrow to go to work - what will that achieve? You will not be capable of doing anything. You will be a hindrance, not a help.”

“I thought I’d go to a doctor,” half sobbed the thin wretch that was his child.

“Yes, but you won’t listen to a doctor who will tell you to take a break, will you? I bet you mean the other kind of doctor, who will give you a pill to make the fear go away. But the problem is not the fear. The fear is a signal that something is wrong.” He was gesticulating with his smoking cigarette, hissing through his teeth as if in anger. His anger was of course directed at himself, for not noticing where things had been going with his only daughter, for again having allowed himself to not see what he did not want to see, but it sounded to Natalie like he was admonishing her for her own stupidity.

“Your job is not to suppress this danger signal,” he hissed, “your job is to act upon it, to fix that which has been broken. And not later - right now.”

Natalie didn’t answer but turned away as if to look at the window. She was silently crying, biting her lips, her right hand clutching her left elbow. She looked like she was ten again.

Anton had broken through. He ran a damp hand through his hair and allowed himself to relax a little. Now he could afford some kindness and a hint of ego boosting here and there. “Now,” he said kindly, “I know that you are a very responsible girl, and I am proud of you. But you must remember, that your first responsibility is to yourself and to your family, and that’s me.” He let that sink in before continuing, “no one else cares about you enough to be able to see facts. Instead, they prefer to see what suits them. This is how people function. Even if you are an inch away from dying, they will keep using you, and when you snap and fall on the floor, they will all act surprised.”

A memory resurfaced, a painful memory. A painful memory before, now - a tool. “I knew a girl once, and she was diagnosed with cancer. Yet instead of retreating and concentrating on herself, she continued going to work, pretending that nothing out of the ordinary was happening. And no one told her to get a clue, to just go home, sleep, meditate, eat honey, watch favorite cartoons, do anything to try to get the body back into life mode. No, everyone said ‘what spirit!’, ‘what will!’, ‘keep fighting,’ all that bullshit... and then she died, in only two months. And everyone acted surprised. So, damn surprised.”

He got up, circled the table and hugged his daughter’s shoulders, cradling her head in his hands. “When the body is depleted and the mind is in shambles, my dearest daughter, you must forget all the social posing. Right now other people’s compliments, expectations, demands - they don’t mean a thing. They have, at this point in time, lost any meaning, and continuing to cling to them is self-destructive. You must concentrate on retrieving yourself back from the brink. And when you have achieved that, when your body and mind are in good working order again, then you will return back to your social obligations and you will be as excellent as always.”

This, all of this, is really boring. Just listening to this guy talk. He's not very eloquent or very interesting. Just a jerk who doesn't use contractions, and now he's talking endlessly. Sounds like a motivational speaker on TV.

tried to bury her face even deeper into his palms.

When was she burying her face in his palms in the first place? Last we knew, his palms were ruffling her hair. Her thin, wretched hair.

So all in all...this is a transition section. Just trying to get from interesting event A to interesting event B. And being so, it shouldn't be dragged out this long. We spend so much time not learning much, with nothing happening, and the two characters having the same attitudes toward each other (No, I can do it. No, you can't. No, I can do it. No, you cant.) until one finally breaks down. So this either needs to be spiced up, we need to learn more about something, or it needs to be shortened drastically.

Them's my thoughts.

Hahaha, sargsause,
Thank thee very much for the feedback!

This is all a part of a sub plot mini-story arc taking place in bits of part 3 of a part 4 book, so hopefully by the time readers get here, they will have integrated into their psyches both Anton’s approach to the world, and Natalie’s.

But dude, thanks for all the punches in the face, I mean, the editing and proofreading contributions, the switched on TV, the willpower stuff. Perhaps I would have caught them themselves come the time for the final edit, but perhaps not, perhaps I would’ve been too in love with them.

…You leave the hand-spinning out of this. That’s called whimsical style boy, style I say. (But how can we trust someone with style when they call the middle finger the index finger, JR?) By willpower boy, willpower I say!
Haha, anyway, thanx again.