Dr Hakui, CEO and sole employee of Konkoyo Pharmaceuticals, had her eyes glued to the old tube TV she had nestled among her aquamarine-filled test tubes. In approximately twenty seconds, the commercial she had filmed to advertise her new experimental pharmaceutical would air. She had paid fifty bucks for the block—a half-minute window on late-night cable—and one-hundred and twenty for acting lessons. As for research and development costs regarding the pharmaceutical itself, she cut those completely by using only the chemicals she already had under her bathroom sink.

When the TV faded to black, Dr. Hakui leaned forward and held her breath. A half-second later, an upbeat jingle trickled through the speakers, and she saw herself on the screen, running in slow-motion toward the camera.

“There I am!” she screamed.

“Are you morbidly misunderstood?” said the voice-over, which, naturally, was her own voice. “Do you ever feel like an ugly duckling when you know, deep down, you are a swan at heart? Well, there’s a pill for that. It’s called Copempic. Forget Infinity Stones! Reality can be anything you want with Copempic.” The voice-over doubled its speaking speed. “Warning: May cause leprosy, gout, swelling of the adrenal glands, body odour, Don Quixote syndrome, forgetfulness, forgetfulness, forgetfulness, spontaneous corpse explosion syndrome, and forgetfulness.”

The screen faded to black, and Dr Hakui saw her own face, eyes glittering, reflected in the glass screen. She leaned back on her lab stool and exhaled. “I knew those acting lessons where a good investment.” She put her hands behind her head and looked up at the ceiling, which was scorched black from her many experimental mishaps. “I wonder if I’ll get any takers.” She looked at her watch. It was well past midnight. “Guess I’ll find out tomorrow.”

As Dr Hakui slapped her hands on her knees and was about to rise from her stool, the door to her lab swung open and clapped against the wall with a bang. A young woman with short blue hair threw her wallet at her and shouted, “I’ll take your entire stock!”

Dr Hakui ducked the wallet and blinked back at the young woman.

“The commercial!” panted the young woman, crawling on her knees toward the Doctor.

Dr Hakui’s face lit up. “Oh! You want to try Copempic.”

“You don’t know what its like to be so handsome and yet be treated so uglily,” said the young woman, grimacing like a Victorian poet whose poems had been called ‘pedestrian’. “I’ll try anything if it’ll make people see me for who I really am.”

“Well, I didn’t exactly promise it could do that,” said Dr Hakui. She was about to clarify further when the young woman reached out and put a finger over her mouth.

“Shh,” said the young woman. “Don’t ruin this for me.” She slowly took her finger off the Doctor’s mouth and put it on her own and winked.

Dr Hakui, looking physically ill, reached into her lab coat and threw a white paper bag at the young woman, the word ‘Copempic’ written in Sharpie on its front. “Knock yourself out.”

“Thanks, Doc!” said the young woman, studying the bag’s contents. “Any side-effects I should be aware of?”

“Nah.”

“This has been FDA approved and everything, right?”

“Yep.”

“How much do I owe you?”

“It’s on the house.”

“Cool. Mind handing me my wallet?”

Dr Hakui picked up the young woman’s wallet like it were a dead rat and handed it over.

“Oops! Our hands touched,” said the young woman after unnecessarily caressing the Doctors’ hand before taking back her wallet. “How embarrassing,” she laughed. She arched an eyebrow. “Unless…?”

“Please leave.”

After a troubled-night’s sleep, Dr Hakui awoke the next morning and scrolled through the news on her phone. An article caught her eye. “The Blue Man Group welcomes its first female member.” Under the heading was a picture of the young woman from last night, looking like she had forgotten something, her skin blue as a sapphire, posing with a troupe of bald men, all of whom were just as blue.

“Guess I better update that list of side-effects,” said the Doctor. Her face broadened with a smile. “This calls for a new commercial.”