Celeste
Comes now the story of Celeste.
Celeste was an enterprising young woman born in an era that required an enterprising mind to survive.
It was the height of industrialization. But it was also a time where only the most sensational news sold at the corner newsstands.
Celeste set out to capitalize on the information market of the penny press. These cheap newspapers were inexpensive to create and easy to disseminate to the public.
The problem was, given that it was inexpensive, there were newspapers of every stripe flooding the market for information.
The papers were written from all kinds of perspectives with all kinds of consideration for truth. Some cared about what they printed as being factual while others were less discriminating.
Celeste was one of those who were less discriminating about her information.
She printed stories about the news on the street whether it was women being robbed on the sidewalks, drunk hooligans setting boats on fires at the docks or businessmen manipulating prices on their products in department stores.
Celeste would add what she called flair to her stories, often demonizing those she saw as the villains, lionizing those who she saw as heroes and vindicating those she saw as victims.
But again, the penny press was a tough market. Coming close to losing her paper, Celeste set out to do something different. Instead of just echoing what was happening in the world, she decided to create her own information. This way she had no competitors, she had information no one else had.
So Celeste wrote her first edition with a story about a madman walking the streets, killing stray animals and then leaving the corpses of kittens and puppies on the front stoops of government buildings. The man, Celeste wrote, was protesting inhuman conditions of factories, sweatshops, meat markets and other businesses.
Her paper sold out. Soon other papers picked up her stories and started rewriting them, often adding their own flair. One paper picked up her lie and then said the man had spoken with one of their reporters and was considering killing a person instead of animals.
Celeste started another rumor that a nurse at a hospital was poisoning her patients. The nurse felt like she was acting as an angel of mercy, Celeste wrote in the story.
Again, the story sold and it spread, much like the fabricated, animal-killing man.
This continued. Celeste enjoyed watching her creations grow and spread among the populace.
She was so popular, in fact, that other papers would ask for her editions the second they were sold by the paperboys on the streets.
Celeste could tell that the other papers knew her stories were fake. It led her to believe that they were making up their stories too. Thinking this, she felt comfortable in her lies.
One day a factory caught fire outside of town. Many people inside the factory died.
Celeste wanted to capitalize on the tragedy, so she wrote an edition claiming that a government agent had the business burned to the ground because the factory’s owner had been insulted by the agent at a dinner party.
Given the anguish that the fire and deaths created, many people were incensed by Celeste’s stories. Unlike her previous fabrications, this one stoked misery among true victims.
When she tried to leave the offices of her press one night, she was accosted by a mob, demanding to know who the agent was who set the factory on fire.
Celeste, unsure of what to do, said it was a man who worked in the patent office. The crowd, not caring for verification or veracity, immediately stormed to the patent office. Celeste grabbed a pen and notebook and followed them.
They reached the office and pounded on the door, demanding blood. A meek young man opened to see what the mob wanted. They demanded from the young man to release the identity of the agent who set the factory on fire.
The young man, unaware of what was happening, stuttered in his speech and could not form any words.
The mob took his hesitance as a sign of guilt. They dragged the man outside of the building and then beat him mercilessly on the sidewalk until he was dead.
Across the street, Celeste watched. She smiled at the mob and their ferocity. She would have a good story for the next edition and it wouldn’t have to be a fabrication. For once, Celeste the fabulist, would report exactly what happened.