Hey Guys! It's me. I thought I'd post this just to see what everyone thinks.

This was a piece that was written in 15 minutes. It was a challenge from a friend of mine, who wonderd what I'd come up with if I was given the following guidelines:

- It must include Gus The Theatre Cat
- Either his birth or death (I chose death)
- A woman, man and child.
- Must be listening to a certain song while writing (I was given a list and I chose one from it that suited the piece.)
- Must be under 700 words. (It is actually 699...YES!)

I've never really done a one shot before, except for "While Neville Slept" which is posted on my friend's account, and was a present for her. (It was written two years ago as a joke and is very crappy.)

So please, tell me how I did. It is my first attempt at a one-shot, and I've never really done anything close to this before. I know it probably sucks, but nevertheless, I give you "Encore".

Maddy

"Encore."

A final wisp,
A final breath,
A final curtain call.

"Mummy…" The little girl cried, tears softly drifting from pale blue eyes down the length of her cheek. The droplets fell on the flatness of the old cats' back. Mottled fur greyed by the ages; Stained by the stage makeup of all the great pantomimes. The small hand of the girl reached to smooth down the old Tom's cheek fur.
"Oh…what a shame." The girl's mother slowed her hand. The tissue no longer peeling away the blush and foundation that masked her true skin from the harsh theatre lights. She lifted herself from her seat at the mirror, making her way over to her daughter.
"He was very old sweetheart…" She soothed, taking a humble seat on the dusty carpet. the small girl stared at her mother through a thin blonde curtain of hair.
"But I'll miss him Mummy."
"I will too darling…" The woman sniffed, trying to choke down her own sob to spare her child the scene. "He was a good cat. He was here for my very first show you know…" The older woman mused, raising her hand to brush the hair from her daughter's face.
"The stage manager found him in the costume trunk, curled into a little ball."
"Where did he come from?"
"No one knows." The actress sighed as she heard rain beginning to pelt down outside the theatre's doors. "…but everyone loved him very much." She reassured her child, reaching out to pat the cooling, thin frame of the old moggy. "…He was always coming in and out of the theatre, and we always wondered where he went. But he never missed a show…" She trailed off, again ignoring the tears welling in her eyes. She was an animal lover at heart, and the stray cat had become a steady form of comfort for all the struggling youths that had performed in the theatre over the years.
"Was he ever on stage?" The girl questioned her mother curiously. The actress gave her daughter a comforting nod.
"All the time. He would rub everyone's leg before the show…when we were all nervous. After the show was done, he would come to rub our legs again...like he was telling us we did a good job." Her voice quavered multiple times throughout her tale. The memories of her early acting days, of her first concert. The cat had offered her many purrs of encouragement on opening night, just as the show was to begin, and she was about to walk onto stage.

It was her first ever standing ovation.

"He was….always there…" The woman could no longer hold down the tears. Her makeup ran in steady rivers, staining her nose and cheeks black. "Even when the crowd didn't like us…or when someone forgot their line, he would walk on stage…and rub our leg in front of the audience. We would call for our prompt while they were laughing…it was like…like…" She fought to hold her blubbering back to finish her story, "He knew. He knew we needed someone there. he was always there; even when his paw would shake and he couldn't walk properly…he would sit there, on the stage with us…"
"Mummy?" The girl whispered as her mother covered her face with her hands, sniffing loudly. The small child buried her face in the woman's costume, offering her own form of comfort for her slowly disintegrating mother.

"Great show tonight Miss – Oh…" The director had barrelled out from backstage to find the two crumpled beside the unmoving form of Gus, the theatre's resident cat. He slowly approached them, steps echoing throughout the grand auditorium. He reached centre stage, joining the mourning under the spotlight that illuminated Gus's aged form.
"Poor thing…" The director whispered into the quiet, standing above the grieving actress and her young child. "…he was such a good cat."

As the curtain falls on stage,
So too does the life within the characters.
As the makeup peels, the costumes left,
Gus the Theatre Cat lies.
Centre stage. Under the spotlight.
An Ovation.

How'd I do for a first attempt under certain conditions? Please review! Love you guys. Also, the song I was listening to at the time is "Recessional" by Vienna Teng.