Metaphor for technologically powered future.
The narrator (Charlie) does not know where he had kept his phone. He is highly dependent on the information provided by the phone to perform many tasks that are essential in his life like dressing and navigating his car. When he remembers that he might have left his phone at the workplace, he drives there in a frenzy. His workplace is located in the science district and when he reaches there he calls it the 'Better Future' and he is too eager to get in and to reconnect with his phone. It is only with the phone does life seem meaningful.
Metaphor for coldness
Charlie says that the stairwell was ice. This is a metaphor. He is worried that he would have to choose his attire without the help of the updates about the weather which he used to get from his phone which had got lost. As he prepared to take a shower, he wrapped a towel around his waist and moved in the direction of the bathroom. He calls the stairwell in his house ice. In this case, the shaft where the stairs were had not all of sudden changed its substance and became frozen water. The phrase is a metaphor which means that the stairwell was extremely cold. The literal meaning of the phrase would be that the air in the shaft had become ice. This is not the case because the statement is meant to be metaphorical rather than literal.
Simile for computerization
Charlie says that three million sheaves of paper were stacked up in the internet storage and they stood as a monument to the lack of efficiency of storage of information in the form of paper. In this simile, the storage of information on Google, or any other computerized platform is compared to a monument. Essentially, with the advent and advancement in technology, there have come monumental improvements in the storage of information. Charlie implies that the storage of information has become better with computerization. The simile also shows the inefficiency with manual storage of information because information as much as the Charlie was accessing would have taken up huge space without computerization
Simile for life without a phone
When Charlie loses his phone, he is utterly confused and feels like his life has come to standstill. He frantically looks for the phone in every crook and nook of his apartment. He does not find the phone. To describe how he was looking for the phone under the bed, he uses the word 'grope', which means the way a person tries to reach objects in the dark. He thinks he is ready to get away in his car to work where he might have left the phone, his mind is playing tricks on him because he is utterly confused and anxious at the same time for the loss. He reaches out to get his phone and that is when he realizes that he has not showered nor dressed. That is the time that he says that it felt like he was blind without his phone.
