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Man a Man a Mwnci (Might as well)

How had it come to this?

The wind whipped at the hem of her black dress and the rain pattered down upon her umbrella, as she pondered the box before her. The casket was as black as the skies above and the water droplets struck at the hard wood feebly. Emerald stalks of unruly grass sprouted from beneath each of the grey crumbling graves, desperate to escape away from the ghosts below.

A hand came down on her shoulder making her jump briefly. She refused to look at the hands owner, she knew who it was and she hated them. She swatted the hand away like it was a pesky fly.

"Don't be like that, cariad," said the voice from behind her, "especially not today. What would the dead think?"

She did not care about the dead, except that she wanted some of them to live again. The priest's words offered no comfort to her and all she wanted to know was why it had to be this way?

* * *

Marc stumbled through the doorway into his dirty messy Welsh home. The whitewashed walls of the kitchen still had dirty hand stains plastered around the light switches. The cooker still had used pots and pans upon its rings. The sink was full of last night's dinner plates and the smell of moldering food was strong.

"Beca?" he shouted, looking at the piles of half folded garments on the table. Dammit has that woman done nothing today he thought sourly.

"What?" came back Beca's angry reply from somewhere upstairs. He stomped up the narrow staircase and found his wife still in bed with the covers pulled up around her shoulders. A mess of twisted tangles sat upon her head and her freckled face was hanging. The air in the bedroom was rank with sweat and the scent of unwashed clothes.

"What's going on?" Marc said, his eyes darting towards the wardrobes, which stood open and full of scrunched up dresses. Something did not feel right here.

"What do you mean, can't you see I'm sick?" Beca wheedled, raising a thin white hand up to rub her nose.

"You seemed fine this morning?" Marc said harshly, remembering her springy steps as she rose to get the children's breakfast.

"Well, it came on quickly," Beca replied, her lips thinning and her cheeks going slightly red. "Don't you believe me? Can't you see I look awful? Or are you just looking for yet another reason to accuse me of cheating on you?"

"I know what you're doing, I just can't prove it," Marc said putting his hands on his hips and staring hard at her.

"I'm not doing anything," Beca said in a resigned voice, "we've been through this so many times that maybe I should just cheat on you. If you believe it so much, I guess I might as well do it."

"I'm not being funny, but you already are," Marc said, his voice raising several decibels.

"Daddy, stop it," said a slight squeaky voice from the hallway. "Don't argue, please. You're ruining my life."

"That's a little melodramatic, Elin, don't you think," Marc said to his ten year old daughter, who looked more like her mother every day.

"Or maybe not," scoffed Beca quietly.

Marc wheeled on his wife and her sarcasm, took a step forward, his mind filled with a hatred so strong that he almost lost control of himself. He started shaking as his body tried to decide if he wanted to flee or fight.

"Tell me why I'm doing this Beca?" Marc asked, his voice trembling. "Why am I doing all this for you, when you treat me like this?"

"Like what Marc?" Beca answered, her arms crossing like a barrier. "I've done nothing to you."