In the wake of the acclaimed short story book "Los peces de la amargura" (The fishes of sorrow), The Guardian of the Ford provides eight stories written in implacable and lucid style. The circumstances and life experiences of the characters are taughtly drawn, underlining all the drama and heroism that the human soul contains, as well as the meanness, atrocity and absurdity. The protagonists of the stories confront extreme situations, from the grave consequences of terrorist violence, such as the fear that forces a couple to flee from city to city, or the mosaic created by various people's experiences of the 11M tragedy, to other, more intimate situations, such as the teenager who discovers a moral aspect to his father during a holiday, or the person who witnesses the pain of a woman crying in a metro station.