Taking a Duce (A Benito Mussolini self insert, rewrite)

[Alenco98]

December 15, 2025
Rwanda
20 kilometers Outside Kigali

The alarm rang as it always did. I opened my eyes, reached for my flashlight, switched it on, and carefully climbed out from under my mosquito-netted bed. I checked the time.

4:45 a.m. Monday.

I yawned. I hated Mondays. In that brief, half-conscious moment, I understood Garfield on a spiritual level. Fuck, I hated Mondays—with a burning, deeply personal passion. I briefly considered not going into town today. Just staying put. Pretending the world didn't exist. But that fantasy died quickly. Even if I didn't want to go, I had to.

I had a meeting with an NGO. My long-suffering project—getting new bathrooms installed at my schoolhouse—was finally, miraculously, coming to fruition. Six months of emails, meetings, vague promises, and polite lies were supposed to culminate today.

Supposed to.

I grabbed a towel, shampoo, soap, and headed for the showers. Miraculously, there was water. Cold water, but water nonetheless. A small victory. I was in and out in five minutes, teeth chattering, soul temporarily evacuated. I changed into business casual—a collared T-shirt. Not like I was meeting the president.

I pulled out my phone and texted my mom first, then my girlfriend, always in that order. Hierarchies mattered.

I'd been in Rwanda for a year—Peace Corps—helping with "development" in the village and, if I was being honest, trying to make my résumé shiny enough to eventually land a cushy job at the State Department once my service ended.

To my mom, I sent the usual update:
"Day 415. 389 days left."

She liked counting. It made this all feel survivable.

Then I texted my girlfriend, told her I was heading into town.

Sofie.

We'd known each other since high school, started dating in college. She was sad when I left. Angry, too. I didn't blame her. But I wanted—no, needed—this. Office life, career stagnation, dying slowly under fluorescent lights? Fuck that. We were going balls out.

So I left. Promised I'd visit (I did). Promised I'd call (mostly did). And I swore to myself I'd propose someday. Then we'd get married, I'd get a State Department job, and boom—traveling the world with decent pay and slightly better coffee.

After I finished texting, I looked out the window. The sun was just beginning to rise—twilight bleeding into dawn. I checked my phone again.

5:45 a.m.
The bus to Kigali would be here in twenty minutes.

I sighed.

"I should have stayed in America."

I grabbed my backpack, checked for my keys, locked the door, and headed out. I waved to a few villagers also making their way toward town. Thankfully, it wasn't grocery day. That was Friday. Fridays were hell. Town on Fridays felt like a divine punishment.

I sat at the bus stop, texting my brothers, my dad, friends back home. The usual shit.

Then our "bus" arrived.

It wasn't a bus. It was a Toyota Hilux with a tarp stretched over the bed like a bad joke pretending to be weather protection.

I paid the driver the usual—ten thousand Rwandan francs, less than ten dollars—and climbed in.

Routine took over. Phone out. Headphones in—wired, because I refused to buy AirPods on principle. Spotify open. Tomoko Aran playing. City pop filling my ears as the truck rattled its way toward the capital.

The ride was bumpy, but the view was still beautiful. The sun rising over the jungle I lived in. Green, endless, and stubbornly gorgeous. Even now, it took my breath away.

And then it came.

Should have stayed in America.

That thought—my ever-faithful companion over the past year—returned like a mosquito in the night that just wouldn't die, as the rusted truck bed jolted over another pothole. I swear we caught air. My spine was going to file a formal complaint with HR, if I ever made it back to one.

But it didn't matter. Today, I was going to heaven.

By heaven, I meant the medium-rare steak they served at the Hilton in Kigali after my meeting. I went there at least once a week to remind myself that air conditioning still existed and stayed the night once a month, draining my savings with enthusiasm. It was overpriced and underwhelming—but American enough to temporarily patch the homesick holes in my soul. And since I already had to be in town, it felt like a perfectly valid excuse to fuck around afterward.

My thoughts were interrupted when I noticed one of the Rwandan guys riding with us pull out a cigarette and try to light it. Nothing. His lighter was dead. He fumbled for a few seconds before I reached into my pocket and pulled out my trusty Zippo.

"T'as besoin d'un briquet?" I asked, mildly proud that I could speak at least one useful sentence without embarrassing myself.

"Oui, merci," he replied. Then, pulling out another cigarette, he looked at me.
"Tu veux?"

"Oui, merci."

He lit mine after I lit his. For a brief moment, leaning back with cigarettes between our lips, I felt oddly at peace. Like this dusty, nicotine-stained, utterly unremarkable moment was exactly where I was supposed to be.

And then the truck hit the pothole.

Not just a pothole. The pothole. The kind you name afterward, like a hurricane. My dumb ass, sitting too close to the edge, flew.

I mean launched.

For one frozen second, I saw everything—the red dirt road stretching ahead, the bright sun hanging lazily over the hills, the distant outline of Kigali. I thought of Sofie. Her arms. The way she smelled after rain.

I thought of the Hilton steak I was never going to eat.

And then—

Nothing.

Just black.

Like someone flipped a switch.

September 1, 1939
Palazzo Venezia
Rome, Italy

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I felt was… wrong.

Not pain. Not fear. Not even confusion. Just that deep, gut-level existential wrongness—the kind you get when you wake up inside someone else's dream and immediately know you don't belong there. The sheets were too heavy. The mattress was wrong too—soft, yes, but in a way that suggested it had been stuffed with goose feathers, guilt, and inherited wealth. The air was thick, perfumed with an unholy blend of expensive cologne, stale cigar smoke, and something else entirely.

Old money, maybe. Opulence. The faint aroma of historical crimes.

Above me loomed a ceiling so aggressively ornate it practically sneered in Baroque. Gilded vines curled between carved cherubs frozen in eternal judgment, their little stone eyes boring into me like I'd personally offended them. This was not my Peace Corps bed. This wasn't even a room. It was a statement. A declaration. Possibly a threat.

And the bed—sweet merciful God, the bed. A king-sized imperial monstrosity with carved oak posts, silk sheets, and enough decorative pillows to declare a small war. I sat up cautiously, half expecting Morgan Freeman's voice to start narrating my confusion in a calm, reassuring tone.

To my right, a woman slept peacefully beneath the covers. Elegant. Middle-aged. Vaguely familiar in the way historical documentary reenactments are familiar—recognizable, but only after the fact. My brain, meanwhile, attempted to boot up and immediately crashed at the login screen.

Was this a fever dream? A very, very elaborate Renaissance fair? Had I hit my head too hard back in Rwanda and decided to hallucinate some early-20th-century aristocracy cosplay as my brain's final act of rebellion?

I staggered out of bed. My feet landed on cool marble—marble, not concrete or wood or dirt. Real, gleaming marble. The kind you find in museums, palaces, or the homes of people who've definitely colonized something at least once.

I made my way to the window, steadying myself against the wall. My legs felt… different. Stronger. Stockier. Like they'd been carved out of granite and national pride. I looked down at my hands.

They weren't mine.

They were broad and callused, slightly olive-toned, hairy in a way that suggested testosterone had gone completely unchecked for decades. These were hands that signed decrees. Hands that slammed tables. Hands that absolutely did not know how to send a polite email.

Outside, the city waited.

A wide stone plaza stretched out beneath me, flanked by towering architecture that practically burst with imperial overcompensation. Massive fascist banners snapped in the wind like ominous red exclamation points. Soldiers goose-stepped below in perfect formation, boots striking the stone in mechanical unison. Somewhere, a brass band blared a military march that made my soul itch.

And then I heard it.

"Duce! Duce!"

I blinked. My wave—awkward and Midwestern, born entirely of politeness and panic—froze halfway up. Cold sweat broke out across my back.

Duce?

No. No no no. That was definitely not my name.

I backed away from the window, heart hammering, and staggered toward the dresser. A mirror hung above it, framed in gold leaf and pure judgment. I stared at it, paralyzed.

Then, slowly, I stepped closer.

The man in the mirror was… not me.

He was bald. Broad. Square-jawed like a brick that had somehow developed opinions. His eyes were dark and severe—the kind of eyes that had definitely declared war at least once and maybe banned jazz. His shoulders were built to carry nations, or at the very least convince people to march in straight lines for reasons they didn't fully understand.

This was not my face.

This was a historical figure.

And not the cuddly kind.

Then the floodgates opened.

Memories—entire decades of them—came crashing in uninvited and italicized in fascist font. Rallies. Marches. Screaming crowds packed shoulder to shoulder. Speeches that felt powerful in the moment and catastrophic in hindsight. Power. Betrayal. War. So much war. Endless war. So many bad decisions. So many black shirts. Always black.

I dropped to my knees.

Nausea surged through me. I fought the overwhelming urge to vomit. My head felt like a broken television blasting every channel at once—none of them good, all of them loud.

Okay, I told myself, gripping the edge of the dresser. Deep breath. You're hallucinating. You fell off a truck in Rwanda and cracked your skull on a rock. This is just your brain's last weird dance before the lights go out. Any second now, you'll wake up in a hospital bed missing some teeth, and Sofie will be there, crying, holding your hand, telling you that you look like absolute shit.

Your name is not Benito.

I thought of her. Her laugh. Her sarcasm. Her judgmental eyebrows. I missed my tiny house with its cracked solar panel and the rice that always came out sticky. I even missed the village goat that screamed at 2 a.m. like it was being exorcised. I missed being irrelevant.

Still dazed, I staggered to a massive wardrobe that looked like it had survived five empires and a small meteor strike. I cracked it open.

Inside was an arsenal.

Military tunics. Polished boots. Medals. Sashes. Enough fabric and authority to overthrow a medium-sized democracy. It was like if cosplay and dictatorship had a baby and then gave it a military budget.

Clearly, I was someone important. Someone powerful. Someone very dangerous. And someone who, apparently, did not have to worry about doing his own laundry.

I pulled on one of the less dramatic tunics—black, obviously—with far too many buttons and epaulets that screamed look at me, I am the state. Blending in felt like my best chance at not being executed or, worse, forced onto the radio to give a speech.

I turned back to the mirror.

It felt like watching a ghost try on your face.

The fit was too perfect. It made my stomach churn. It made me want to apologize to the entire continent.

And then—because fate has an especially cruel sense of humor—someone behind me stirred.

"Benito?" a woman's voice called softly.

I turned slowly.

She was awake now, sitting up in bed, her face lined with concern. She looked at me with the weary affection of someone who had seen far too much of a man and still loved him anyway.

"Yes?" I croaked.

She blinked at me.

"Perché stai parlando inglese?"

Why are you speaking English?

Of course. Of course she was speaking Italian. Of course I was supposed to be Italian. Of course my name was now Benito.

Benito… fucking… Mussolini.

I stared at her.

Then at the mirror.

Then at the endless, screaming void opening up inside my own mind.

Oh no.

Oh no no no.

What the hell kind of fever dream is this?

"Apologies, it was just a joke," I said in Italian, forcing out a weak chuckle and an even weaker smile, the kind you give when you're hoping reality will politely ignore you.

Internally, I thanked God—assuming He still existed in whatever twisted dreamscape I now inhabited—for the small mercy of inheriting Mussolini's memories, and therefore his flawless Italian. Minor crisis averted. Hurray.

Unfortunately, my primary crisis was of a much more immediate and historically horrifying nature.

I was Benito fucking Mussolini.

These were not my hands. Not my face. Not my charmingly scruffy Peace Corps beard that made village kids call me "teacher with the funny chin." Instead, I looked like a discount Caesar cosplayer juiced to the gills on steroids, nationalism, and mustache oil. Mussolini. The man. The myth. The war criminal.

I was him.

I tried to play it cool. Maybe I was in a coma. Maybe this was some kind of medically induced fever dream while the real me lay in a hospital bed in Kigali, surrounded by frantic doctors and shell-shocked volunteers whispering, "Where the hell did he go?"

She didn't seem convinced. She watched me carefully, skepticism etched into her expression.

"Benito?"

I kept my eyes on her, on the woman who had woken up beside me like this was a perfectly normal morning. Which, to her, I suppose it was.

"Yes? What is it?" I asked, aiming for casual and landing somewhere near suspicious.

She squinted. "Why do you sound so… different?"

Ah. Right. Italian. Mussolini. Rome.

"I have a sore throat," I croaked, immediately regretting it as I sounded less like a strongman dictator and more like a hungover jazz singer. "I have a country to run, so I'll be going now."

And with that incredibly smooth exit, I fled the bedroom—door left ajar in my panic—and wandered into the halls of what the memories flooding my head helpfully identified as Palazzo Venezia. A vast, echoing mausoleum of ego and fascist décor. Uniformed guards snapped salutes at me that were uncomfortably Nazi-adjacent. I returned them stiffly, like a drunk man doing the YMCA.

Between the sensory overload and the memories slamming into me, the whole thing felt like a bad shrooms trip with historical consequences.

I stopped, leaned against the wall, and tried to sift through the memories. I needed to find my office. Then my stomach growled.

Right. Food. Priorities.

I spotted a young woman—early twenties, hair neatly tucked beneath a scarf—and gently tapped her shoulder.

"Excuse me."

She turned and immediately beamed. "Duce! What can I do for you?"

I resisted the urge to physically recoil. "Please have breakfast sent to my office. I'm hungry. Two eggs and a glass of milk."

She blinked. "That's not what you usually eat, Duce."

"New diet," I said quickly. "Simpler times. Thank you."

"As you say," she replied, clearly unconvinced, before hurrying off.

As she disappeared down the hall, the memories continued to settle in, like sediment after a storm. I followed instinct more than logic and eventually reached my office. When I opened the door, the first word that came to mind was overcompensation.

A massive desk dominated the room like a throne. Shelves of unread books. Oil paintings of battles that probably never happened. Flags. Maps. Symbols. I exhaled.

At least here, alone, I could pretend I wasn't completely losing my mind.

I sat behind the desk and tried—very hard—not to have a nervous breakdown.

I was Mussolini. Not metaphorically. Not spiritually. Literally. Historically. Physically.

What the hell was I doing with my life?

The door opened again. The servant returned with my painfully modest breakfast. "Stay for a moment," I said. She did, politely pretending not to watch as I devoured both eggs and downed the milk like a man recently rescued from a famine.

"Thank you. You may go."

"The council will be here soon," she said. "It's 7:30 a.m."

Perfect. Just enough time to spiral further.

She left. I reclined in the absurdly large chair and stared at the ceiling, briefly wondering if I could fake a heart attack. Or throw myself out a window. But then—how would I get back to my real body? Was that even possible?

Before I could spiral further, another woman entered—short-haired, confident, moving with the ease of someone who knew exactly where she belonged. Before I could react, she leaned in and kissed me. Hard. Familiar. Her hand wandered south.

My brain blue-screened.

"Ben," she whispered, "where were you this morning? I was worried."

I gently but firmly pushed her away, caught between confusion and a deeply inconvenient biological response. "Apologies. Today is going to be… busy."

She studied me. "Is it because of what's happening in Poland?"

I froze.

"Yes," I said carefully. "Hitler said he was going to attack soon. On September 1st, 1939."

Her face drained of color. "Duce. That's today."

September 1st, 1939.

Shit.

This was the day. The beginning of World War II.

And I was on the wrong team.

"Great," I muttered. "Of all fucking days."

"What?"

"You wouldn't get it," I said quickly. "Run along."

She left, disappointed. I stayed, deeply relieved I hadn't been exposed as an imposter—or worse.

What a weird dream, I thought. And if it wasn't a dream—if this was somehow real—maybe I could do something with it. Keep Italy out of the war. Steal from the treasury. Fake my death. Anything.

Soon after, a procession of men entered the office. Uniforms. Medals. Salutes. "Duce" echoed like a curse.

They seated themselves around the massive table, eyes fixed on me.

I cleared my throat.

"Gentlemen," I said, steadying my voice, "it appears Germany has gone to war with Poland."

Silence.

I leaned back, folded my hands, and thought: Let's see how long I can keep this madness going before they realize I'm not Il Duce—just an unpaid jackass from America.

I kept my posture firm, my face severe.

Inside, I felt like I was staring down a firing squad.