Writing Prompt #9

In italics below is a writing prompt from 642 Tiny Things to Write About - I hope you enjoy reading my response and feel inspired to write your own response in the comments.

Write a short story where a character understands that a good friend has lost their mind.

I started having suspicions when Althea began to pace and cackle like a witch weaving around things unseen.
Let me back up as you might be wondering what I'm going on about - Althea and I are good friends. We both frequent a jazz bar in town and quickly went from regulars at the bar to friends who still meet there weekly. Althea is the listener - to me, to the music, to anyone who realizes she has the kindest ear and soft-spoken advice.

A few weeks prior to the aforementioned cackling, Althea showed up later than usual to our weekly visit to the jazz bar. She was disheveled, sweaty, and pale, but when I asked her what happened, she brushed me off and said, "oh just a little run in with a black cat."

"Must have been a large cat if she is so affected," I thought. But looking back now, I can see some other signs of strangeness from her - jumping at noises, napping in a bit of sunshine at all hours of the day, a voracious and sudden consumption of fish. Unusual for Althea, but maybe she was going through something, I thought.
Fast forward back to the present - remember the pacing and cackling? So this is when I knew Althea had lost her mind. This was not the quiet kind-hearted friend I knew, but a body possessed with a mumbling problem.

"Cats here, there, should be everywhere," she mumbled and then let out a harsh cackle that had me jumping out of my skin. I had went looking for her when she was again late to our regular meet up at the bar, and found her in the alleyway across the street, facing one wall and pacing. Stopping to toss her head back and cackle, and then continue to pace and mumble.

"Cats here and then not. Where did they go? How do I get the door to open?"
"Althea?" I called out cautiously. "You okay?"
She whipped her head up to look at me and I swear her eyes were the almond shape of a cat's eye.
"Whoa...Althea?"
She tossed her head back and let out another cackle. "Althea...yes that is me," she said. "Now, tell me, how do I get the door here to open?"
I turned my gaze to the solid brick wall of the building. "Uhhhh...the door?"
"Yes!" She hissed impatiently. "The door back to my kind!"
"Your kind?" I stood there baffled. Nothing she said made sense, even if I understood the combination of words coming out of her mouth.
"Ugh, useless human. Senses like a deaf, blind, mute bat banging around an attic. Begone!" She hissed at me and batted at me like a cat annoyed with too much attention.

I stared, dumbfounded, and started to turn away because what else could I do when a bolt of understanding went through me - in my mind's eye, I replayed the last few weeks of increasingly strange behavior starting from her "run in" with a black cat. By the time my thoughts had arrived at a conclusion, I wondered if I had also lost my mind. But Althea needed me, and I couldn't let her down as she was always there for me when I needed her. I thought for one moment of what I could do and made a plan - yep, I've also lost my mind but I hope it works.

I ran to the supermarket, bought 17 cans of tuna, sprinted back to the alleyway hoping Althea was still there. She was still pacing, murmuring, and cackling as I peered around the corner.
"Good." I thought. "Hope this works!"

I pulled the tab on one can of tuna and cracked it open.
"Whatsthat whatsthat" Althea stuck her head in my arms trying to get to the can.
"Oh, you want some?" I asked casually, as if I didn't suspect my friend was somehow harboring a disgruntled cat spirit who loved seafood inside her.
Althea grabbed the can and ripped off the lid to eagerly consume the tuna.

With my distraction set, I hurried to the alleyway to open all the other cans of tuna in hopes this door to cat-kind would open and Althea could be exorcised. I hid back around the corner as Althea scurred towards the open cans.

I caught her around the waist and held her tight against me, hoping that I wasn't completely out of my mind and a spirit cat would jump out of my friend to get to the tuna. Which - I know - sounds like I've already lost my marbles.

"Let me go! There's tuna! LET. ME. GO!"
I held on with everything I had and with a yeowling screech, Althea fell back against me and a black cat materialized in mid air, leaping towards the tuna.
"Oh my gosh!" Althea gasped. Both of us spellbound by the sight of the black cat, but also by a sudden crack of light as a small door opened in the wall and cats poured out for the offering of tuna.

"Heeeyy Walter! You're back!" One cat called to the black cat.
"Not likely to ever leave again." He grumbled. "Being bound to a human is terrible. They eat almost no fish and work all the time and constantly listen to noise and..." Walter grumbled all the way back into the hole in the wall as the cats again disappeared, leaving a pile of licked-clean cans.

I looked at Althea and she looked at me - thankfully, I saw my friend staring back at me.
"Whaaat just..."
"What in the..."
We both started at the same time. Shock gave way to laughter and when someone asked us what was so funny as we giggled in the alleyway, we could only reply,
"Sorry, cat's got our tongue."