Perhaps it was just his way of tweaking the nose of a reaper he does not believe in, but Hitchens hinted at a belief – or a yearning, or an understanding: what he called a "numinous" or "transcendent" element of human experience.
As Shepard meets in the Normandy's cargo bay with the survivors of the mission, Joker gives the Commander schematics of a Reaper.
Drones have been much in the news lately, what with Iran's claim to have brought down a Sentinel stealth drone operated by the CIA, and the crash of a Reaper drone, deployed to combat piracy off east Africa.
In Arrival, Shepard investigates evidence of a Reaper invasion, leading to events that bridge to Mass Effect 3. Other plot-related downloadable content packs include the loyalty missions Zaeed - The Price of Revenge and Kasumi - Stolen Memory, and Overlord, which adds five new missions to the game.
He recalls the countless times he's been shot at by jets, or killed just so someone can take a picture and post it online boasting about their achievement of besting a Reaper Lord.
"[But] life is a copiously branching bush, continually pruned by the grim reaper of extinction, not a ladder of predictable progress".
In Gould's words (1989), "Life is a copiously branching bush, continually pruned by the grim reaper of evolution, not a ladder of predictable progress".
When Mr. Golightly chugs in, driving his imaginary bus, he quickly becomes a surprisingly matter-of-fact reaper of souls who seizes one of the spirits and disappears.
Except, that if Ramsey really is the grim reaper of celebrity figures, he's doing a deeply unimpressive job of it.
Tournament referee Brian Earley sauntered out onto the Ashe Stadium court, which is never a good sign — he is sort of the grim reaper of the tournament; when he arrives, bad things are happening — and play was officially halted.
