My friends and I are in an on-again/off-again writing club where the rules are simple. Every two weeks you have to submit three short stories that it took you 20 minutes or less to write. These are the results.

We arrived at the gates with a question for the queen.  Two hairless apes in helmets stood before us.  Towering, nine foot monsters with pale, enlarged arms like nba players floating in vats of formaldehyde, lit from below.

The ape on the left said, “Her highness is stuck in a were-lock!”

Which could mean anything.

First things I thought of, in order:

Raped by a werewolf

A suggestive wrestling position performed versus a warlock

TimeRift/StarGate somehow controlled by werewolves

Shakespearean curse

Highly acrobatic hair braiding, normally done only for royalty, that has ended in tragedy.

My car stalled

“What’s doin,” I said.  “With that?”  I was drunk and somehow the guards seemed to know.

The other enormous ape spoke and seemed sad that he had to.  “The queen doesn’t want to see you.”

“Why not.”

His every gesture seemed resigned.  “Every time she sees you she’s disappointed.”  He shrugged.  “That’s not just my opinion.  She told me.”

The first guard yelled, “Her highness is caught in a slice of purple!”

“Now I get it,” I said.

“You see what I have to deal with,” the sad guard said.  He moved his fingers slowly, in the universal gesture for run along. “The Queen is tired,” he said.