Flash Nonfiction

The Bird Incident

by Tired Cat

I’ll tell you what it feels like to trust your associative memory and then publicly humiliate yourself with it. Spoiler: it feels exactly as stupid as it sounds.

So. I’m switching shifts with a colleague earlier today. She hands me the basic facts about the next patient: surname Slavíček, pleasant man, ginger cat, needs an invoice and a trip to the doctor’s office. I repeat the surname a few times in my head — Slavíček, Slavíček — just to lock it in. Just to pretend I’m functioning properly.

My brain, of course, decides to get creative, setting off a small associative chain.

Slavík means nightingale in Czech.

Slavíček is a little birdie.

A tiny nightingale.

A sweet, feathered creature.

Czech loves diminutives.

Great. Cute man, bird surname. Fine. I let it sit like that.

Then it’s time to call him in. I step into the waiting room and say his name loudly — I like when things are unambiguous. But that’s the exact moment my brain flips the wrong switch. Instead of Slavíček, I blurt out:

“Pan Ptáček, vstupte.”

Mister Little Birdie.

Mister Tweety.

In a medical setting, with witnesses.

The whole waiting room perks up like I’ve announced the winner of a raffle. I repeat it. The man is smiling, but not moving. I look at him. He looks at me. I smile back — thin, apologetic, already suspicious. I wave him over. And then, right when my brain is supposed to self-correct, it gives me something even better. Louder, aimed in his direction:

“Pan Pták, vstupte!”

It would've been fine, honestly, if “pták” in Czech meant only “bird.” 

But no. Of course not. Ninety percent of the time, it means exactly what a five-year-old boy would giggle at.

So yes. I basically yell across a packed waiting room:

“Mister Dick, please come in.”

Clearly. Confidently. With the projection of a theater actress.

And the man — bless him — doesn’t even resist. Just follows me in, like this is his fate now.

Only in the exam room, when I finally check the computer, do I fully register what I’ve been calling him. And there’s this short, sharp wave of embarrassment, like a hot towel slapped over the face. I try to soften the horror with a compliment — because that always ends well — and what comes out of my mouth is:

“Oh… You have such an interesting last name.”

Brilliant.

Appeared in Issue Spring '26