Gretel and Hansel leave the city. The city built from open mouths. The open-concept kind where the towers have no turrets only floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Inside the windows a gaggle of concrete gargoyles. Concrete is an ingredient, tasting peppery. Gretel and Hansel gathered peppers from their neighbor’s child-proofed garden for years. They proved themselves as capable thieves but bad liars—they said the green pepper quiche was gifted from an ogre. Everyone knows the downtown ogres eat children and sweet gingerbread and sourdough and marriages but not quiches. Gretel and Hansel split open a marriage down its trunk and saw the semi-circles lie with each ring and saw the interstate traffic steal by and sawed away every hurt rooted in the past. Their parents packed their trunks and told them they would be back the next morning. The next night even the 24-hour-news tired to a stop and dawn rolled in like angel on graveyard shift. Gretel and Hansel don’t believe in angels but do believe in statues. The statues in the city speak of leaving, the architectural process of becoming leaf. Gretel wants to see green. She is hungry. She takes Hansel by the hand and they walk out of the city, collecting age and peppers and teething as they go.