BALER AND OTHER STORIES

The Spain in these pages is fictional. The moral weight of civil war is not.

Spain has fought itself before.

The first time, the world watched and drew lessons. Poets wrote about it. Painters captured it. Philosophers argued over what it meant. By the time it ended, nearly a million Spaniards were dead, and the country that emerged from the rubble spent forty years pretending the war had never happened.

The second time, no one was watching. Or rather, everyone was watching, and no one was doing anything about it. In the early years of Spain’s Second Civil War, the nation has fractured along fault lines no one predicted. As foreign powers profit from the conflict and maintain official neutrality, the ordinary men and women are left to live—and die—inside it.

Baler and Other Stories is a collection of twenty interconnected narratives that map the complete moral lifecycle of a society tearing itself apart. From the volcanic craters of the forgotten Canary Islands to the drone feeds of a gamer; from brutal urban combat to the claustrophobic depths of a submarine.

This is not a book about generals or politicians. It is about the people who wake up one morning inside a history that will not let them go:

• A former waitress turned elite scout, carrying a hand-forged knife named after an impossible siege.

• A fighter pilot who realizes his orders are a lie, and his wingman is the price of the truth.

• A bank teller who must rebuild her neighborhood’s economy from scratch when the digital currency collapses.

• A mother who must decide what to do when the state abandons her village to the flames.

Through the eyes of soldiers, spies, refugees, profiteers, and vigilantes, these stories explore what happens when the lines between right and wrong blur in the fog of war. They ask the ultimate question: What does it truly cost to "hold the line"—whether tactical, moral, or psychological?

Part of The Broken Flag Saga, this companion collection is a stark, deeply philosophical, and unflinching look at the human condition under fire. It is a testament to the stubborn, fragile hope of reconciliation, and the heavy price of survival.

For those who hold the line, and for those who wait for them to come home.