Challenge 255

By Some Numbers

What do you suppose the beginning of the story might be in C. D. Ratliff’s “The Storm of Destiny”?
In Ronald Polizzi’s “What Mr. Johnson Knew,” what did Mr. Johnson know? Besides the recipe he gives to Berry, that is.
How does Michelle Reale depict the narrator’s feelings in “From a Distance”? What does numbering the sections — not the paragraphs — add to the story? Mentally remove the numbers: what seems to be missing?