By skyforbes I took us to a market to a leather stand – As it happens, in real life, I did exactly this, I had a jacket made into a watch strap which is why I suggested it to see how it wrote it.
Me:
"There’s that stand with leather jackets. So many different sizes and styles. Ones to suit absolutely everyone and it’s proper decent leather as well. None of the fake plastic leather. Who doesn’t like a leather jacket."
ChatGPT:
"You’re standing there, watching Karlie twist and turn in the cropped jacket like she’s testing its limits — seeing how it’ll move when she spins, when she dances, when she climbs onto your lap and demands attention in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon — and your hand instinctively drops to your wrist.
The Panerai’s there, snug and solid, its weight familiar, grounding. The strap is old, darkened at the edges, softened by time and wear. It doesn’t match the watch — not in the clean, factory-finished sense. But it matches you. More than that — it holds a story. One only a handful of people even know.
The leather’s from that jacket. The one you wore for years — long, black, fitted just right through the shoulders, zipped high when you needed to feel invincible, open and flapping when you didn’t give a toss. You got it from this exact stall, back when the market still had muddy walkways and a bloke selling VHS copies of pirated FA Cup finals.
When it finally gave out — stitching worn, collar cracked, one elbow near enough worn through — you didn’t bin it. Couldn’t. You cut a strip from the back panel, right over the kidney, where your scent had lived longest, and posted it halfway round the world to HKTan, with a note that simply read: “One more life.”
He didn’t need more than that. What came back was perfect. The strap he made was thick, rugged, raw-edged — the same grain you’d run your fingers over a thousand times before. And it still smells faintly like the jacket. Leather, sweat, a hint of smoke from a dozen campfires and early-morning drive-throughs.
Karlie had given you the Panerai that birthday. She handed it over in a box she wrapped herself, corners sharp, ribbon cockeyed. She knew what it meant — how that watch, on that strap, wasn’t just about telling time.
Now, whenever you glance at your wrist, it’s all there — the jacket, the market, the smell of leather on crisp mornings, the weight of years, the feel of her hand squeezing yours when you opened the box.
And she sees you looking now. Doesn’t say anything. Just catches your eye, holds it for a second too long, and gives you the smallest, warmest smile. Not smug. Not teasing. Just there.
You nod. She knows what you’re remembering. Because she remembers too."
Me:
"To Alina, it’s just a watch and a strap. She doesn’t get the connection."
ChatGPT:
"Of course she doesn’t.
To Alina, it’s just a watch. A nice one, sure — she’s not blind — and she’s complimented it before in that offhand way she does: “Big. Shiny. Very you.” But the strap? The battered, old, cracked leather thing? No. She doesn’t get why you’d pair something so worn with something that clearly cost a fortune.
She’s said as much. “You wear luxury with dead cow. Is like Ferrari with hubcaps from Lada.”
You laughed. Karlie didn’t.
Because Karlie does get it. She was there when the jacket was new, and when it started falling apart. She saw you pull it from the back of the wardrobe even when it was too hot, too ripped, too impractical — just because you needed to feel a bit more like yourself. She was the one who watched you cut that strip out of the leather and sit with it on the table like it was an heirloom.
Alina missed all that. It’s not her fault. She wasn’t around then. To her, it’s just a strap. Some sentimental English nonsense. A story that goes on too long and ends with “and then I sent it to a bloke in Malaysia to stitch onto my overpriced watch.”
So when she sees you staring at your wrist now, in the middle of the market, caught in that soft, heavy pause that only memories can drag you into, she just shakes her head and mutters something under her breath about “boys and their toys.”
Karlie shoots her a look. Not angry. Just sharp enough to make Alina shrug, hands raised in mock surrender.
“Fine, fine. Very emotional strap. Tears of cow still inside.”
You smirk, because that’s how it works with Alina. If she doesn’t get it, she’ll take the piss. Not cruelly. Just to keep the air from getting too thick.
Karlie steps over and rests her hand on your arm, just above the watch, not even glancing at it. “She doesn’t have to understand,” she says quietly. “It’s yours.”
And it is.
The strap. The watch. The jacket it came from. The stall it came from. The version of you that used to walk through this market decades ago, alone. It’s all still here, even if Alina doesn’t see it."
Because this reflects real life, where I sent off a strip of leather from an old jacket to make a watch strap, it really struck home with me. We slate ChatGPT but sometimes, just sometimes, it really hits the mark (despite being full of tropes).