After reading your text I have already marked a couple of things directly in Google docs.

Never the less I'm quite sure this doesn't count as a full critique. So I'm also writing this as a flowing text. To start with my general remarks, this was a very good story in my opinion. It was based on a good idea and executed well enough for the reader to stay interested and continue reading. The Story was about a young man that was left with special needs after an accident. Throughout the story he is cared for by his relatives, with whom one of them, his younger cousin, he later falls in love with or at least expresses attraction to.The piece of prose fulfils all the necessary criteria for a short story, such as only a brief description of the background and very little sudden start and end.The title did overall fit the story but was very boring. A title usually serves the purpose of attracting readers and making them interested in the story. And to successfully fulfil that purpose a good ti

There’s some really solid writing here. I was onboard from the beginning and definitely believed that I was in the mind of this locked-in narrator, which isn’t an easy feat. 

Nevertheless there's a substantial thing I'd say critically about this one, and it's that I think there’s a real mismatch between the tone of the story and the ending.  For me, this is nearly impossible to not make this mind-reading scene comedic:

 <JAYNE>

	Fuck!

<FUCK JAYNE>

	What? No, that’s not -- 

<FUCK JAYNE>

	No! That’s not what I’m thinking!

<FUCK JAYNE>

 I didn't mean to --

<ERECTION>

Turn it off! Turn it off! Turn it off!

..

The tone of the preceding story is one of quiet contemplation about the protagonist’s fate (which is done well, although I would suggest speeding the pace along by implying more than you do currently - it's a bit explanatory).

So I’d proffer one of two alterations: either give the whole thing a tonal nudge into dark comedy, or change the plot about the erection. ‘Marry J

I like this, specially how you deliver information; you're not desperate to convey everything at once. You give yourself room to show. Another character in another story could've just said, 'I'm blind'.

 I only mildly disliked the constant 'He... He... He...' The pronouns repeat so much in a single paragraph that it takes me out a little. Once or twice is fine. 

 But that's just me. At the end of the day, we should all be careful and don't take comments as anything other than what they are, 'suggestions'.

Hi! This is my first critique. This will be chronological and focus on the first impression.  
  
1/2

TITLE:  
  
The title fit the story. I could see it very clearly. I started thinking of the tv show Blue’s Clues and a child’s room, even a crib, and wondered about the age of the main character. It spurred me to read more to see more images. I’m also partial to literary fiction and particularly about childhood and families, so it set up some expectations. I expected to find out something sentimental about the object, a memory, perhaps from an old person.  
  
OPENING/FIRST IMPRESSION:  
  
The opening sentence, in first-person present tense, contained a strong voice. I wondered why Shanghai and why won’t the character ever go? There’s a nice weight to those two elements in the opening sentence. The width of the word Shanghai (assault of big city images) and then the door slamming in the second half of the sentence.   
  
I think successful stories focus on some kind of tria

2/2

DESCRIPTIONS/POV/DICTION/MISC:

As I said before, the sentence lengths and “I” beginnings work. This is not a simple person. He uses full sentences, interesting words, despite being incapacitated to some extent. He has opinions and can make connections and describe things. He has memories and he can also project into the future. This is important because emotions are experienced in a certain order. Let me dig up the relevant section from a book (Robert Olen Butler, “From Where You Dream”):

“Emotions are also basically experienced, and therefore expressed in fiction, in five ways. First, we have a sensual reaction inside our body — temperature, heartbeat, muscle reaction, neural change.
   Second, there is a sensual response that sends signals outside of our body — posture, gesture, facial expression, tone of voice, and so forth.
   Third, we have, as an experience of emotion, flashes of the past. Moments of reference in our past come back to us in our consciousness, not as ideas 

RESPONSE TO YOUR QUESTION

Frankly, I saw only one thing that might have been removed from the story (see PLOT below), and I don't think that's what you're talking about.

Now I'll continue with a full critique, since I need that for posting my own story. :-)

OVERVIEW

Congratulations!!! This is superb! For most of the story I thought it was a well done derivation of the famous novella (whose name I can't remember) about a WW I soldier in a similar predicament, but no! It's a really fresh and important and believable tale.  I hope there's someplace you can publish it for a wider audience.

PLOT

"Sooner or later they’ll come back and scold me for what happened. I’m sure they’ll have a lot of things to say that they’ve never said before, a lot of frustration to share with me. And I’m just going to lie here and receive it. Such is my fate."

Here a whole bunch of questions are introduced. "They'll...scold me." His supportive uncle? His aunt who "never visits?"  What will cause them to h

Yeah, I kind of think so to. I'll have to come back to it fresh and see if it's gotta go

Ah. Right. Well, at the first mention of the erection I thought back to that classic novella I mentioned in my critique. I think I thought, "Yeah, that's part of the quadriplegic experience." But on reflection, I think the story is stronger without it. The real impact for me is the theft of his one remaining private experience. The erection, almost by defnition, is not private for him. So the erection dilutes the impact.

Wow that's super encouraging! I've edited the story and now letting it sit for a while before coming back at it again. Maybe then I'll send it to some contest if I find a suitable one.

The element that concerned me was the erection bit. I thought it was too on the nose and out of place and wondered if the story would be better if things were more subtle.

I've thought about this story on and off for a day and sent the link to a couple of friends. I really do hope you send it off to some short story contest.  And I hope you tell us, at some point, what the particular element was that concerned you.

I really enjoyed it and felt it conveyed emotion well regarding frustration and hopelessness. I do not know which part you are referring to, but I can say that I didn't feel like anything didn't fit or was out of place.

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