It started that faithful night: December 30, 2006, my 14th birthday. Shortly after the dictator swung from a Baghdad rope, I felt a knot in my stomach. We had to cancel the party while it was still home and my mom had to send my friends home. Simultaneously, Both Sunnis and Shiites, tired of the secularist tyrant, made good use of his body.

The next morning I awoke to feel a strange sensation, a tempestuous mixture of euphoria and horrifying pain. I felt a voice in my brain telling me to return to Tikrit, that my kingdom awaited.

I have also received visions telling me to avenge the deaths of Uday and Qusay, and to retake my palaces. I just ignore them and go back to work at my electrician job, but sometimes… I do wonder.

Saddam was pretty cool the more you think about it: Took over a broken country and received ultimate power. Partied. Made lots of friends. Screwed over his enemies with furious vengeance. Raised a family. Met a lot of women. Made a lot of money. Bought multiple mansions with huge swimming pools. Dude had a good thing while it lasted. Meanwhile, I can barely pay rent at my journeyman electrician gig.

Is it possible that when Saddam Hussein died, his soul transferred into mine? I'm struggling to accept that my perhaps my destiny is in returning to Iraq, uniting the warring factions, and seizing the palaces of Baghdad for my, I mean, Saddam's legacy.