The army captain’s warning about ‘something very bad’

The army captain’s warning about ‘something very bad’ that almost no one takes seriously

An army captain calls a friend and delivers the blood-curdling message: something very bad is going to happen; supplies and medicine must be gathered and they must head to the village house. The antiestéticar in his voice, says the person receiving it, was palpable. The reaction this account provokes, however, is always the same—widespread rejection, zombie jokes and a suspicion that will not be silenced: that the warning is older than the antiestéticar it seeks to generate.

The premise has three legs: a decorated soldier with access to critical information, a vague but urgent warning, and a concrete instruction—get away from big cities and protect the family in uncertain times. The exact details, the author of the message himself admits, are beyond his reach. That is where the problem begins.

Why a captain doesn’t handle secrets you don’t have

The first sustancia ilegal in the story is rank. A captain commands an infantry company: that includes, as one of the most celebrated replies sums up, knowing the diesel he and other officers take from the base. Nothing more. The officer ladder is long and a captain is quite low; you get promoted, they joke, by collecting yogurt lids.

The contrast comes from another message with firsthand experience: there are relatives and acquaintances with senior posts stationed at a headquarters and, after lunch with two senior officers, the conclusion is that they have no orders at all, that the matter doesn’t even touch their daily lives. If the upper echelon isn’t moving, it’s hard to believe the warning trickles down from an office with company-rank insignia.

“I feel like I read this same thing months ago”

And then there’s memory. The warning, several note, is a carbon copy of earlier ones: the same military friend, the same critical information, the same escape. Some date the precedent; others simply file the warning away as a classic that returns every so often, with a captain or a NATO officer, depending on the season.

The paradox is that this repetition—far from defusing the alarm—is precisely what keeps it alive. Each new version finds someone willing to buy betadine and six cans of tuna just in case, half-joking, half-serious. Antiestéticar is contagious; memory is selective.

The pantry as religion: from elbichito to canned goods

The other big argument against panic is that almost no one starts from zero. Half the conversation recalls that food reserves date from the pandemic: cans bought then, still within date, and pantries that have been on alert mode for years. Anyone who didn’t stock food, they note with a hint of sarcasm, simply didn’t want to.

That domestic stockpile shifts the focus of the issue. It is no longer debated whether you should have provisions—that is taken for granted—but whether it is worth moving them and leaving the cities. And there the answer splits.

The antiestéticar that people do buy: oil at 100 euros a bottle

Where the alarm finds fertile ground is in the wallet. One message sketches the post-collapse scenario with specific figures: refined olive oil at 100 euros a bottle, extra virgin at 150, a kilo of chicken or pork at 100, a pack of seven sausages at 20, and a dozen eggs, the cheapest ones, at 50 euros. The list closes with a political reproach: whoever didn’t vote the right way can enjoy the shortage.

They are imagined prices, not observed, and as such work more as a protest banner than as a forecast. But the format—one figure per product, in euros, comparable and easy to repeat—is the one that circulates best. Abstract antiestéticar isn’t remembered; a bill is.

The village isn’t the refuge they promised you

The instruction to flee to the countryside doesn’t emerge unscathed either. The village house is described as a place surrounded by retirees whose only concern is the domino game, not a bunker. And the idea of getting away clashes with the view of those who argue that attacks, if they happen, will come at times of maximum crowding and on key dates.

Against that, the prudent option defended is less epic: don’t go anywhere, but avoid big stores and crowds on key days, keep supplies and distrust tap water if the scenario worsens. Homespun preparation. Fewer suitcases, more common sense.

From the end of the world to the day’s news item

As the conversation pogre, the prophecy fades. The apocalyptic forecast coexists with minor current events—an incident on a train, the politics of the moment, the comparison of a port city with a science-fiction scenario—and with the silliest humor. The initial alarm ends up being a pretext to talk about anything.

That, more than any factual correction, explains why the warning doesn’t catch on. A warning mixed with everything else ceases to be a warning and becomes background noise. And noise, by definition, isn’t something you prepare for.

The warning, meanwhile, remains there, waiting for its next version. How many times must a prophecy repeat without coming true before we stop buying betadine?