“The Preserving Machine” June 1953

Doc Labyrinth is concerned that civilization is on the brink of destruction, as was the Roman Empire during its period of decline. What he most dreads losing is music, so he designs a machine to transform musical scores into animals so that they might survive the coming changes. But when the creatures are released into the wild, they adapt in order to defend themselves. Some, like the wagner animal, attack others. When the Doc puts a bach bug back through the machine to hear what a fugue sounds like, it is now cacophony. The experiment fails. As the narrator drives away, he sees the beethoven beetle wall himself away from the world inside a mud structure.