The following is a response to a prompt over at Wattpad.


Using less that 400 words describe the setting in this photograph:

As the angle of the sun in the sky diminished, the blinding brilliance of the light reflected off the snow faded enough that he could see more clearly. It also meant that the scant warmth daylight had provided would be fading as well, replaced by a cutting wind as darkness fell. He zipped his parka to the neck and listened intently for a moment, bathed in the silence unique to the muffling effects of snow on sound. As the man peered from his vantage point in the copse of evergreen trees, he noted that the tracks he was following had been made either while the snow was still falling, or before new fresh flurries had partially filled them. The lack of white residue clinging to most of the visible tree branches confirmed his fear that he was at least a day behind. This was middle-aged ground covering, lacking the fresh smell of a new fall, but it had not yet been transformed to the mostly grey sludge that would invariably follow the human activity within his present suburban surroundings.

He carefully picked up his left foot and shook it, attempting to rid his toes of the numbness brought on by the liquid cold that managed to seep in even through his boots. Repeating the action with his right, he winced at the prickly pain that invaded his lower extremities as sensation returned momentarily due to the increased blood flow.
 
So, he was left with two potential courses of action: follow the tracks and hope to pick them up again on the other side of the street, or return to the dry warmth of his study and find some other way. It seemed an easy decision. His gaunt figure slowly dissolved back into the grey of the lengthening shadows, until there remained nothing except the faint rustle of branches stirred by the strengthening breeze.