[ WP ] Make us fall in love with your character , and then immediately kill them off .

Tomas Mburi scanned the horizon from the bug-splattered windshield of his faded red Toyota truck. The smooth undulations in the Saharan sand curved like the soft silhouette of the feminine form, as if with another of Adam's ribs, God had anointed the barren landscape with those same sweet curves. 
 
 Tomas's thoughts drifted to the cool summer nights under the stars on vacation in Morocco, where he traced his finger over the sweet curves of his love, Alala, a flower of immaculate beauty, a dreamer of lands full of peace and discovery. Together they learned about life and how to find the puzzle pieces that make it truly worth living. They'd kissed under the stars and explored each other's bodies, becoming one being in the most intimate communication of love. They made love and their love made life. 
 
 Tomas glanced at the rearview mirror to check on his cargo. The heavy-duty metal boxes were marked in a stenciled language he could n't read, but more importantly they had not fallen out the back. He'd been told not to jostle the contents too much, and Tomas figured he had no reason to doubt the suggestions of his employer. 
 
 Tomas looked out the front window again at the vast, unending Sahara, and noticed a break in the blank monotony. Off in the distance, a barely distinguishable projection was rising from the expansive desert floor. It was barely noticeable, but it was definitely something. Tomas squinted in vain at the blip as he drove into the nothingness, toward his destination in Nigeria. 
 
 Alala was four months pregnant back home in Niger, cooking cassava and stew with a nice curry spice her friend Kamaria gave her, when there was a knock at the door. Tomas walked over and cautiously turned the knob, and with a bang, the door was flung open. 
 
 A stream of men in red beret hats and military khakis filed into the house, decked out in AK-47s and heavy boots. A soldier in the front grabbed Tomas and threw him to the floor. Tomas lashed out with his legs and caught the aggressor low, knocking his feet from underneath him. Tomas turned his head toward the other soldiers just in time to see the butt of the rifle coming toward his face. The last thing he felt before the world faded to black was the rough caress of a burlap sack being crudely stuffed over his head, and the plastic vibrations of a zip tie being cinched around his hands. 
 
 It's a tree, thought Tomas, as he squinted again into the distance. Out in the middle of this wilderness, battered by sandstorms and the desert sun, with no life other than Tomas within thousands of kilometers, there was a tree. It was probably from an ancient forest, a thriving past ecosystem that was slowly choked by the reach of the desert's sandy fingers. One by one, the surrounding trees died off, their gnarled bark weathered with the incessant winds. Eventually, all life had left the forest, carried off by the sand or pushed to more friendly regions. All except this one tree. 
 
 Tomas awoke a soldier. If you fight us, we will kill you, they said. Take these clothes, they said, and brandished the very military khakis and red beret that had pushed him to the ground. Take this gun, they said. We will go to the next village and recruit all the men and rape all the women, and kill all the women who resist, they said. We killed your wife, they said. Tomas needed to be restrained again after that one. 
 
 He stared at the tree as it slowly grew in size. It looked like an old Acacia, gnarled and weathered by time. How many of his brethren did this Methuselah see dry up into hollow stumps, to be taken away by the piercing glass sand. How totally and utterly alone. 
 
 Tomas ran away, or rather tumbled away, down a cliff face as his war group was preparing to take over another village. He turned to the right and just stepped into the air. Both arms still clicked when he raised them above his head because the broken bones had healed out of place. A truck driving job in Nigeria was his only prospect. The only thing in his life, really. 
 
 Tomas turned the wheel slightly as his truck continued toward the tree, the first time he had done so in hours. They were here, together. The gnarled old wood of the acacia had seen generations come and go, pass by in life and pass on in death. He was the last of his brethren, the only piece left in a beautiful puzzle. Tomas smiled widely as his truck approached the tree. They were here, together, in this moment, connected by life and death and perfectly shaped to fit each other's puzzles. For the first time since the curry cassava and stew, Tomas felt the full-body tingles that accompany inexplicable love. His heart swelled with pride, and love, and a connection to everything the world was. 
 
 The engine block of Tomas's Toyota buried itself in his groin and continued through his stomach, tearing him nearly in half, before it collided with the delicate contents of the containers in the back of his truck. The ensuing flames licked wood and flesh alike into ash. For nearly an hour the fire raged, red-hot tendrils doing perverse dances on Tomas and the tree's twin grave. 
 
 The blaze died down, leaving a charred metal skeleton and a pile of bleached bones. The skull and broken jaw, haphazardly arranged, almost seemed to form a smile in the red shadows of the Saharan sunset. 
 
 TL; DR http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbre_du_T % C3 % A9n % C3 % A9r % C3 % A9
