Soriya
an excerpt

I was christened Soriya at my birth. I have kept that name throughout my life, although it’s meaning is most ironic. Soriya means “the sun” where I was born, in what is known now as Cambodia. I haven’t seen the sun in longer than I can remember, but I keep it anyway, in honor of the parents that gave it to me. Their memory is as distant as that of the sun I am named for.

I have witnessed the rise of the Khmer Empire - the construction of the beautiful and intricate temples at Angkor Wat. I also grieved as I watched the empire fall, and the once cultured and educated Khmer fracture and fade into obscurity. I was in Paris during the revolution, and may have had some small hand in the intrigue and so forth that was rife at that time.

I sailed the oceans of the world, first with the Chinese of the Qing Dynasty, and then with the legendary Jean Lafitte into the bayous of the Louisiana Territories. I danced at quadroon balls, made an enemy of Marie Leveau, and lived as a rich and pampered noblewoman in the old French Quarter. I watched the bloody birth of a new nation – one called America, and watched it tear itself in two, and try to put itself together again.

I am still here, and I still watch.