title: Absolutely positioned elements collapse
body: <p>I have some absolutely positioned elements:</p>
  <p><div class="snippet" data-lang="js" data-hide="false" data-console="true" data-babel="false">
  <div class="snippet-code">
  <pre class="snippet-code-css lang-css prettyprint-override"><code>span {
    display: block;
  }
  
  span.sub {
    color: blue;
    position: absolute;
  }</code></pre>
  <pre class="snippet-code-html lang-html prettyprint-override"><code>&lt;div&gt;
    &lt;span&gt;Coffee&lt;/span&gt;
    &lt;span class="sub"&gt;Tea&lt;/span&gt;
    &lt;span class="sub"&gt;Milk&lt;/span&gt;
    &lt;span class="sub"&gt;Water&lt;/span&gt;
  &lt;/div&gt;</code></pre>
  </div>
  </div>
  </p>
  <p>How can I prevent them from collapsing?  I want them to flow freely over the elements under <code>div</code>, like a dropdown navigation menu. Can it be achieved without nesting the positioned elements inside an extra container?</p>