This one goes out to all my fellow minnows who are working in silence, hoping and praying for the big upvote. Don't give up, it will come when the time is right.
"Come on, loooaad you bastard ... yeah, surprise me, you imaginary place, damn you people ... not again!
"JAMES!"
James groaned in frustration at that booming voice as it forced his own mutterings into silence. He put down his phone, rose to his feet and walked sadly to his fate. Bad enough he hadn't done his chores yet, he'd been hoping to at least have a positive response before getting to them but so far, just chicken feed and zeroes - the wrong kind of zeroes. It was shaping up to be an unpleasant morning -- and his father calling his name like that was not going to make things any better.
"JAMES!" The call of his name came again from the living room, the huge voice of his father. Huge voice of a huge man. "Yes, daddy!" James answered as he pushed back the curtains and entered the door.
His father was lying patiently in wait, seated on the sofa. Black of beard, mighty of arm and chest, his traditional-patterned shorts showed his bulging quadriceps femoris. James' father was a formidable man, as determined in the gym as in providing for his family.
"Sir," he answered , and the man continued: "Hope you have registered for your JAMB?"
Ice-cold shock of relief. It wasn't his chores and it wasn't the question of what he'd been doing in his room since. "Yes, sir! I completed the registration yesterday!"
"So where is your center?"
"Well, i haven't reprinted yet."
"And why is that so? If i may ask?"
"JAMB will notify me when it is due, sir."
"Okay, that is just good. You can go."
More relief. James went.
12.00AM. The brightness of a glowing computer screen. A boy's dark face, glossy in the darkness, his eyes red with lack of sleep but narrowed with focus. James was on his desktop fingers banging away at the keyboard of his desktop. His father had rewarded him with it for coming first in his class two years ago, the last present he had gotten from the harsh and demanding man. It was his most precious possession and it was thanks to it that he was able to do what he was doing now: translate literacy into lucre* -- or so he hoped. The title of his article? "HOW TO CASH OUT SBD TO NAIRA." His eyes tried to drift shut but he stopped and slapped himself "No! I must finish this tonight!" and he persisted until, with a triumphant sigh, he leaned back to stretch his whole body. "Yeeeeeeeessss." After stretching and rubbing his eyes, James hunched forward again to edit his post, fine-tuning the Markdown and correcting spelling errors.
"Well ... here we go again." He plugged in his precious 9mobile modem and clicked the menu to turn it on so he could go on online. Finally! Without waiting for the modem to finish connection, he had already opened his Opera browser and was typing "steemit ... dot ... com slash 
"Meeehn," he lamented, leaning back in his chair again with his fingers laced behind his head: "I don't know who will read the post but if it's at least 
Rising at last to his feet and stretching again, James yawned mightily, "Aaaaaaaah-beg, let me come and be going to sleep jarre. In the morning we go see the usual disappointment." as he dragged himself off to bed. He really wished for the magic to happen. As always he had put all his research and care and English knowledge and soul into his post and he felt drained. He bid his prayer in his brain and mind, even in his dream and fell to sleep, dreaming of a tiny green arrow pointing at the top of a screen.
Next morning, he got up very late but hastily picked up his phone and accessed his profile via Opera Mini (to save data; Chrome was for posting only) but all to little avail. It was just the usual assortment of 100% dust upvotes by his fellow minnows, 40 in all adding up to a not-so-bad $1.5. He appreciated them -- he really did -- but he really wished something bigger would come. He needed to reload data for next month and without some cool upvote, he would need to go to his ... dad again. Not recommended.
Still, he had had worse days. Ironically, it was this attempt at consoling himself that infuriated him the more! Those people getting big money from Steemit and claiming they're there for the community, do they have two head?!! Nonsense posts with big upvote, am I cursed?! He raged in his heart, his face squeezed like an orange. He was almost feeling like it was time to give up on this ... this nonsense thing and go and hustle in some other way o jarre. What had all his persistence of weeks and months gotten him? In grief he left his room for his chores. His eyes were pulped with redness and his heart felt a great disdain but what else could he do than to hope?
These incidents occurred repeatedly day after day, yielding little increase in his reputation until one day ...
12:00AM. James was writing a non-fiction story titled "Ihe Nwanne Mere Nwanne Ya" it was a story based on his Igbo culture, an event that took place in time of his ancestors about a man who killed his only brother's only male child in order to acquire power and wealth through such dastardly means.
James was always focused when posting but this time around, something was different. There was a fire in his eyes and his brain, a fever in his fingers; his fingers battered the keyboard with such fury it seemed like he was going to punch holes through to the desk. Everything happening in that darkly lit room was extreme as he wrote professionally and furiously and made a very elaborate work.
This time, when he posted it, he did not even say anything even to himself. He just unplugged his modem, shut down the desktop and went to sleep. Indeed he expected no better result than before. Who can say why? Maybe he had decided to say to hell with that website and give it one last big send-off? Perhaps it was just like any other night in his room. Whichever the case, he dozed off uncaring of what upvotes may come.
When James woke up the following day, he was in a surprisingly good mood, feeling light and free. He refused to look at something that would make him despise himself so he did not grab his modem and he did not pick up his phone. He had had a very restful sleep and saw no reason to ruin it for now with the usual weak result. Therefore, he didn't bother to check his profile and went on to the kitchen to eat and do chores. After his long work, he finally picked up his phone "Eh-heh, make we see the usual today. I no even wan know again!" and he opened his profile ... and ... and ...
At first, it didnt't even register. He just scrolled up assuming he had accidentally opened someone else's page or that it was a post he had resteemed for whatever reason but then he saw his own profile pic at the top. He looked closer and sure enough the title was still "Ihe Nwanne Mere Nwanne Ya." His eyes were seeing it but his brain still refused to accept it. His heart didn't even know whether to beat or stop. His eye couldn't bear the phenomenon. After some few minutes, he sat down slowly, gingerly, as if a sudden sound might scare away the numbers. He carefully clicked the post and scrolled down to the bottom to see who had upvoted this. He clicked on the votes and:
"@Curie," he whispered, reverently.
*
Thanks for reading!
Sincerely,
