核心畫面

You can picture a stretch of the year with a door across it, and the door is shut. Season is the stretch; close is the shutting. While the door is closed, the thing you want to do cannot be done — the fish stay in the river, the pitch stays empty, the plan stays on the shelf. Nothing is cancelled for ever; the dates are known, and when they pass the door opens again. English even has the name for that other side: the open season. Say the first word like the verb, /kləʊz/, and the picture comes with it.